Bennett Attacks Supreme Court : Church-State Decisions Assailed as Misguided

Education Secretary William J. Bennett, in a blistering attack on the Supreme Court’s July 1 rulings against some types of public aid to parochial schools, declared Wednesday that American values and those of the Judeo-Christian tradition are “flesh of the flesh, blood of the blood.”

Bennett, speaking before a Knights of Columbus meeting, told the Catholic lay organization that “aggressive plaintiffs and beguiled judges” have turned the U.S. Constitution into “the instrument for nothing less than a kind of ghettoizing of religion.”

What they have produced, he said, are “almost four decades of misguided court decisions” on church-state issues that ignore the relationship between religion and “the preservation of a free society.”

“And that relationship is this: Our values as a free people and the central values of the Judeo-Christian tradition are flesh of the flesh, blood of the blood. . . . When we have disdain for our religious tradition, we have disdain for ourselves,” said Bennett, a staunch conservative who frequently has criticized the court on religious issues.

The court, in two narrow decisions last month, struck down a program using federal funds to augment the education of disadvantaged children in church schools in New York City and one that used state and local funds for remedial and enrichment courses provided in religious schools in Grand Rapids, Mich.

New Burdens on Schools

About 183,000 poor students attending parochial schools nationwide could be affected by the decisions. Similarly, the rulings could put new burdens on big-city public school districts that already are strapped for funds.

Justice William J. Brennan Jr., in writing for the court, conceded that such programs have a “praiseworthy, secular purpose,” but he warned that the aid could entangle government in religious matters.

Moreover, he wrote, such a program might forge a “crucial symbolic link” between religion and government, implying in the eyes of young students that the government supports religion.

The decisions were hailed by representatives of the nation’s largest teachers’ organizations, who said they underscored the court’s commitment to keeping church and state separate.

ACLU Supports Rulings

Richard Larson, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday that the rulings accurately reflected the intent of the Constitution, which drew the idea of a wall between church and state from Thomas Jefferson and his belief “that religion flourished best when there was not government entanglement.”

But Bennett said that in these decisions, as well as in earlier court rulings that have moved religion out of public schools, the court “failed to reflect sufficiently on the relationship between our faith and our political order.”

Bennett’s six months as education secretary have been punctuated by a series of confrontations with education organizations and critics on Capitol Hill. He first ignited controversy when he defended a Reagan Administration plan to cut federally subsidized student loans by suggesting that college students “divest” themselves of stereos, cars and vacations at the beach.

The education secretary, himself educated in parochial schools, said that the Administration will continue to press for legislation and court decisions “to help correct the current situation of disdain for religious belief.”

Voucher Plan

He said that the White House soon will ask for legislation that would allow local school authorities to convert federal funds into a voucher program, giving parents the ability to choose whether to spend the funds in public or private schools.

Although Bennett said he is confident that “this Supreme Court will find such a program passes constitutional muster,” the ACLU’s Larson said that that would depend largely on the specifics of the legislation. Proposals for voucher programs have been criticized as a means of indirectly supporting private schools with public funds.