State Ex Rel Gallwey v Grimm :: 146 Wn2d 445
Category: First Amendment
Until we get used to the premise that the government should not be taxing anyone to help put someone else through school, the question this case raises is whether it is a violation of the State and/or federal Constitution to allow State (taxpayer) money to be given toward the education of a student at a religious university. With the exception of a previous precedent where the student was training to be a minister, the high Court held that the “constitutional provision requiring that state schools maintained by public funds remain free from sectarian control or influence does not apply to institutions of higher education and that the program does not violate state or federal constitutional provisions guarding against governmental support of religious institutions.”
As we eluded to in our opening sentence, we disagree with government funding of education but as long as everyone is in the game for the government handouts, we disagree that a religious pursuit should disqualify a student, or school from receiving public funds. The Court agreed, for differing reasons. That the partial scholarship of any student to a religious institution could be construed that the institution was “maintained” by public funds is only a recent legal theory that has been built upon within the last generation and would have been ignored forty years ago. All the usual suspects rallied for Gallwey to paint religious education as a distinctly un-American activity.
Justice Madsen included a phrase worth noting but don’t expect her to maintain this position under fire: “Appropriate constitutional analysis begins with the text and, for most purposes, should end there as well.” [at 459, 460]
Rating the Usual Suspects:
| pass | Alexander, Gerry | |
| pass | Fischer, W Howard | |
| pass | Hart, Maureen A | |
| pass | Hickman, William R | |
| pass | Johnson, Charles | |
| pass | Madsen, Barbara | |
| pass | Masters, Kenneth | |
| pass | Owens, Susan | |
| pass | Reiss, Michael | |
| pass | Sanders, Richard | |
| pass | Smith, Charles | |
| pass | Trelstad, Bergitta K | |
| pass | Wiggins, Charles K | |
| fail | Alkire, John D | |
| fail | Bendich, Judith E | |
| fail | Berschauer, Daniel | |
| fail | Blankinship, John | |
| fail | Bridge, Bobbe | |
| fail | Brooks, Russell C | |
| fail | Browne, Sharon L | |
| fail | Caplan, Aaron H | |
| fail | Chambers, Tom | |
| fail | Green, Steven K | |
| fail | Hayes, Frank P | |
| fail | Ireland, Faith | |
| fail | Luchenitser, Alex J | |
| fail | Mincberg, Elliot M |