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| State's highest court mulls Kiryas Joel III
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State's highest court mulls Kiryas Joel III
(02/22/99)
For the third time this decade, the New York
State School Boards Association returned to the state's
highest court on Feb. 10 to argue against the
constitutionality of attempts by the Legislature to allow the
Hasidic community of Kiryas Joel in Orange County to operate a
publicly funded school district for their disabled children.
The community's religious preferences are for its children to
be educated apart from non-Hasidic children.
The New
York State Court of Appeals is expected to issue its decision
in the spring.
"Our position isn't about precluding the
Village of Kiryas Joel from having its own school district;
it's about the state Legislature enacting an unconstitutional
law," explained Jay Worona, NYSSBA general counsel, who has
handled the case since its beginning.
Originally, the
Village of Kiryas Joel was part of the Monroe-Woodbury Central
School District. In 1989, the Legislature and Gov. Mario Cuomo
approved a law establishing a separate union-free school
district for the village. In January 1990, NYSSBA filed a
lawsuit, claiming the law was unconstitutional. In July of
1993, the Court of Appeals ruled that the law creating the
Kiryas Joel Village School District violated the separation of
church and state principles of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S.
Supreme Court a year later voted 6-3 to affirm the findings of
the state courts.
The Legislature and the governor in
1994 approved a new law but that, too, was declared
unconstitutional by the state courts, a finding affirmed by
the state Court of Appeals in May 1997.
Within months,
the Legislature and Gov. George Pataki had passed yet another
law, claiming this law was more wide-ranging and met all Court
of Appeals tests. Defendants' attorneys, arguing that the most
recent law is constitutional, said that, unlike the first two
laws, which the courts perceived as accommodating only the
Kiryas Joel community and appearing to intermix church and
state, this one could apply to other existing municipalities
and any new village or town that may be created in the future.
However, Worona argued that the law applies to only
two municipalities rather than the "broad array" as required
by prior court decisions, and that it is unlikely that "many"
of the state's 1,545 municipalities will meet its criteria for
establishing their own district.
"This case is about
whether there has been an act of legislation that favors one
religious group over other groups," Worona said. "The specific
issue in this round of litigation is whether this legislation
applies to many municipalities. We maintain it only applies to
two."
Through the past 10 years of legal battles,
Kiryas Joel has kept its school in operation and received
about $4 million in state aid. It is estimated the district
will receive $575,000 in state aid for this school year.
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