Copyright 1994 The Columbus Dispatch  
Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
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March 20, 1994, Sunday
SECTION: NEWS LOCAL & NATIONAL; Pg. 1A

LENGTH: 1036 words

HEADLINE: SCHOOLS AND RELIGION GO TO HIGH COURT

BYLINE: Roger K. Lowe; Dispatch Washington Bureau

DATELINE: WASHINGTON

BODY:
The three R's are well-established in education, but the U.S. Supreme Court soon will decide whether there is a place in schools for a fourth R: religion.

The justices will hear arguments March 30 - coincidentally between Palm Sunday and Easter - on a New York case that could have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. Constitution's requirement of separation of church and state. A decision is expected by the end of June.

At issue are the acceptable role for religion in public schools and what states can do to meet the needs of a religious population.

The challenge for courts and lawmakers is to find the proper balance between recognizing the important role religion has in American life with the rights of those who choose not to believe, or to hold a faith different than the majority.

Nine of 10 Americans say they believe in God; seven of 10 identify with a religious group and four of 10 attend worship services in a given week.

Legislative sessions and Supreme Court sessions begin with a prayer or mention of God.

At the same time, various religious faiths exist throughout society, and courts have been asked to prevent the values and beliefs of the majority from being forced upon others.

The case to be presented this month deals with efforts of the state of New York to set up a separate public school district for Jews of the Satmar Hasidic sect in the village of Kiryas Joel, about 40 miles northwest of New York City. The school program is not religion-based and its teachers are not members of the deeply religious Jewish group.

The school was established in 1989 to teach 200 learning-disabled and handicapped children who cannot keep up with students in the private religious schools attended by the rest of the children in Kiryas Joel, an enclave for 12,000 Jews.

But the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the Kiryas Joel public school district violates the constitutionally required separation of church and state. The creation of the dstrict within the religious community, the New York court said, creates a ''symbolic union'' between the two.

The Supreme Court has been struggling for years with church/state matters, often with seemingly contradictory results.

Four years ago, religious organizations were delighted when the court ruled that public school districts could not bar Bible clubs from using school facilities if other nonacademic clubs were permitted to use them.

But in 1992, the court banned prayer at public high school graduations, ruling that the prayers wrongly gave the impression that schools were endorsing religion.

The Christian Legal Society and National Association of Evangelicals jointly attacked the New York Court of Appeals, saying the ruling against the Hasidic district was ''Orwellian.''

They said the ruling was yet another example of courts using the First Amendment's establishment clause in a way that is hostile to religion. The clause bars Congress from adopting any law concerning the establishment of religion.

''The First Amendment, which ought to serve as a bulwark against enforced assimilation and homogenization, is turned into its opposite,'' said a Christian Legal Society brief.

The group and many other religious organizations, including the Southern Baptist Convention, U.S. Catholic Conference and National Jewish Commission, want the Supreme Court to revise its 1971 ruling that set up a three-part test that guards against impermissible mingling of religious issues and public schools.

That ruling, Lemon vs. Kurtzman, holds that a government action can overcome an establishment clause challenge only if the action has a secular or nonreligious purpose, if it does not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion and does not result in excessive government entanglement with religion.

The Kiryas Joel school failed the second standard, as the New York court ruled that setting up the district advanced religion.

The National Jewish Commission, which represents Orthodox Jews, urged the Supreme Court to overturn the 1971 ruling and replace it with a standard that permits governments to meet the secular needs of religious communities.

Invalidating the New York school district drawn up in this case, it said, ''would send the unequivocal message to all citizens of our nation who possess a religious faith that they are not as entitled to government support of their secular needs as their nonreligious neighbors.''

But a number of other religious organizations, including the American Jewish Conference, United Methodist Church and National Council of Churches of Christ, have lined up against Kiryas Joel's district and have urged the court to maintain separation between religion and public schools.

The United Methodist Church said the justices should not overturn or revise the 1971 Lemon test.

''While it is unsurprising that courts have encountered difficulties in applying the rule in a profusion of constantly shifting factual situations, this does not render the rule bad law or deserving of replacement,'' the Methodist Church said, adding it believes that, overall, the test ''has served this nation and religious groups quite well.''

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy have been critical of the Lemon test. They have seemed to favor an alternative test that would permit religious practices and government to mix, as long as those who do not hold the same religious beliefs do not feel coerced to go along.

Four justices - John Paul Stevens, Harry A. Blackmun, Sandra Day O'Connor and David H. Souter - prefer a test that is more lenient than the 1971 standard, but is tougher than the coercion test, which would permit many practices banned today. Their alternative standard would overturn any government policies that ''endorse'' religion and send a signal to nonbelievers that they are outsiders.

That would leave the deciding vote to the court's newest member: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Ginsburg's views on the establishment clause are not known, because she did not have a case on the topic while on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

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