SCA signed a letter this week to the Department of Education asking that they increase the oversight of a pandemic relief program created for private schools known as Emergency Assistance for Nonpublic Schools, or EANS. The program was targeted to private schools serving high numbers of low income students and there are safeguards to control spending. However, we believe additional oversight is needed to ensure that money going to private schools that happen to be religious schools is not being misspent on ineligible, religion-related activities. We suggested additional categories of data that the Department of Education needs to be collecting from the private schools.  

Additionally, the Senate is making progress on confirming judges nominated by the White House, though not without some focus on religious freedom issues. At a hearing this week I watched as Senator Ted Cruz questioned Vermont Supreme Court Justice Beth Robinson about a 30 (thirty!!) year old case in which she represented a Catholic client who wanted to have abortion-rights pamphlets printed but was denied service by a printing company’s devoutly Catholic owners who suggested the woman’s Catholic faith and abortion-rights stance were at odds. Cruz said he was “concerned about [Robinson’s] record as both an advocate and as a justice,” saying it “demonstrates a marked hostility towards religious liberty.”

Robinson answered that she was protecting the religious freedom of her client. “If the facts showed that [the printing press] declined to print the placard because of their opposition to abortion — rather than their belief that her strain of Catholic faith was wrong — then she wouldn’t have a claim,” Robinson said. The case was settled out of court, thirty years ago, showing the lengths some Senators will go to in their efforts to champion their version of religious liberty.

SCA supports judges who are committed to the separation of church and state, to the Establishment Clause, who respect precedent, and who will not impose their religious beliefs on others from the bench.

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