Why a Supreme Court Ruling About a Church Playground Has Betsy DeVos So Fired Up

“Religious discrimination in any form cannot be tolerated in a society that values the First Amendment.”

Susan Walsh/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that churches have the same rights as other groups to seek public money for nonreligious purposes, deciding 7-2 that the state of Missouri had violated a Lutheran church’s constitutional rights by denying it grant money to repave a playground surface. 

Among those quick to cheer the decision was Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who issued a statement claiming the court sent a message that “religious discrimination in any form cannot be tolerated in a society that values the First Amendment.” She added: “We should all celebrate the fact that programs designed to help students will no longer be discriminated against by the government based solely on religious affiliation.”

DeVos has long advocated using vouchers to pay for tuition at private religious schools, and it was clear that she saw Monday’s ruling as an opening for dismantling so-called Blaine Amendments, provisions in 37 states that ban using public money toward religious institutions, including schools. 

But Martin West, an associate professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, said that the court’s narrow decision will not have an immediate impact on the legal status of school voucher programs. He pointed to a footnote in Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision that noted the court was focusing on “express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing,” as opposed to the broader use of taxpayer-backed funds by religious groups. “The majority was very careful not to extend its logic to school voucher programs in a way that it could have,” he said. “That would have delivered a resounding victory for the school choice movement.” 

West noted that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas concurred with most of Roberts’ opinion but disagreed with the footnote—perhaps signaling an eagerness to take up a case that would allow the court to issue a broader ruling.  

It’s unclear how Monday’s ruling could shape future legal challenges to states’ school choice programs. But the justices have already signaled to lower courts that they should reconsider previous rulings in light of the Missouri case.

On Tuesday, the justices tossed out lower-court rulings in New Mexico and Colorado regarding the use of public money for religious institutions and asked state supreme courts for reconsideration. New Mexico’s high court had struck down as unconstitutional a state program that gave textbooks to public and private schools. Meanwhile, the Colorado Supreme Court had found that a scholarship program run by Douglas County’s school district was unconstitutional, stating in its majority decision that a provision in the state’s constitution “makes one thing clear: A school district may not aid religious schools because it directed taxpayer money toward private schools.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate