High Court Upholds Church-State Split

The Supreme Court, insisting on a strict separation of church and state, struck down Monday a New York law that had carved out a special school district to serve the children of a separatist religious sect.

The Constitution does not allow a “united civic and religious authority” in the United States, the court said, even for the special purpose of educating the disabled children of a Hasidic community.

On a 6-3 vote, the justices concluded that state lawmakers violated the First Amendment in 1989 when they gave the members of the Satmar Hasidic sect their own public school district. The entity, called the Village of Kiryas Joel District, was created to take care of the needs of children too handicapped to go to private religious schools.

The ruling deals a setback not only to the Hasidic sect in this case, but to mainstream Christian groups that had urged the justices to allow greater government “accommodation” of religion. For example, Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice had urged the high court to make clear that public policies are not unconstitutional simply because they aid a religious group.

But other groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, praised the court for adhering to its strict-separation policy.

For a decade, New York lawmakers have struggled to find a way to provide special education to children of the Satmar Hasidic sect. Its members left Brooklyn in the mid-1970s and settled in a rustic community 30 miles north of New York City. They were located within the boundaries of Monroe-Woodbury School District, but most of their children attended private, religious schools.

Ironically, much of problem that led to Monday’s ruling began with the Supreme Court itself. Federal law requires public schools to provide a “free, appropriate public education” to all disabled children. Before 1985, most public school districts served disabled children in private schools by sending in special tutors.

But that year, the high court deemed this practice unconstitutional in parochial schools because it “entangled” church and state.

New York lawmakers passed a measure to create a school district in the village. Its one school served just 40 students, and Gov. Mario M. Cuomo called it a reasonable solution “to a unique problem.”

But the New York courts disagreed and struck down the law because it created “a symbolic union between church and state.”

Both the New York attorney general and lawyers for the Hasidic sect appealed, leading to Monday’s decision in Kiryas Joel vs. Grumet, 93-517.