POSC402 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Free Exercise Clause, Unemployment Benefits, Amish Mennonite

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POSC402
• Professor: Wayne Batchis

Document Summary

Ohio"s pilot project scholarship program provides tuition aid in the form of vouchers for certain students in the cleveland city school district to attend participating public or private schools of their parent"s choosing. Both religious and nonreligious schools in the district may participate. Tuition aid is distributed to parents according to financial need, and where the aid is spent depends solely upon where parents choose to enroll their children. In the 1999-2000 school year 82 percent of the participating private schools had a religious affiliation and 96 percent of the students participating in the scholarship program were enrolled in religiously affiliated schools. Sixty percent of the students were from families at or below the poverty line. A group of ohio taxpayers sought to enjoin the program on the ground that it violated the establishment clause. Court granted them summary judgment, and the court of appeals affirmed. Are parents being coerced into sending their children to religious schools violating the.