As many states prepare to keep students’ learning online in the fall, some are weighing whether to extend religious exemptions to schools run by churches.
The question of regulating religious schools is a First Amendment concern, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote in a Saturday letter to local government officials, stressing that because of the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, county governments are “prohibited from closing religious institutions or dictating mitigation strategies to those institutions.”
“Religious private schools may continue to determine when it is safe for their communities to resume in-person instruction free from any government mandate or interference,” Paxton wrote.
Paxton’s letter came as some large school districts in the state, such as those in Dallas and El Paso, have decided to keep classes online for at least the beginning of the fall semester. As July draws to a close, many schools will at least begin online, with districts across the country citing fears over a resurgence of the coronavirus.
This fact has prompted several Catholic school systems to advertise their in-person classes as perks for families not wanting to keep their kids home. The Catholic Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, for instance, announced in July that it will offer tuition breaks to any parent who transfers their students out of public into Catholic schools before the year begins.
“We want as many young people as possible to join our wonderful communities,” Alison Mueller, the diocese’s director of marketing, told the Union Leader. “We’ll see them in class, in person, this fall.”
Similarly, in California, where through much of July the state has been reverting back to its lockdown mode, the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles in mid-July announced that it was still planning to hold some in-person classes.
“Our goal is to strike a balance between preventing the spread of COVID-19 and providing children with the education, nutrition, physical activity, and mental health benefits provided through the reopening of Catholic schools,” said Superintendent of Schools in the Archdiocese Paul Escala in a statement.
But the California state government over the weekend issued new guidelines requiring all schools, public and private, to keep classes online in the fall. The Archdiocese, in response on Saturday, canceled its plans to reopen.
“Though our return to our beloved campuses will be delayed for now, we will return,” Escala wrote in a letter to parents.
The juxtaposition of state government attitudes in Texas and California has led various religious liberty nonprofit law firms, many of whom represented churches during the first round of shutdowns, to speculate that the issue could open the next front in coronavirus-related litigation.
“Many have operated as though the Constitution is quarantined during a pandemic. But I have news — the Constitution is alive and well,” Mat Staver, chairman of the nonprofit group Liberty Counsel, said Tuesday in response to Paxton’s announcement.
In a similar response, Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for the nonprofit group First Liberty Institute, said in a statement that the group is anticipating schools asking for legal aid as the school year begins. The group says it has been contacted by several schools seeking legal advice.
President Trump and Republican leadership in Congress have pushed for schools to reopen in the fall, emphasizing that a second round of stimulus money could be used to keep learning environments safe. Democrats have said that the proposal is a nonstarter for them, pushing instead for approaches similar to that of California.
Vice President Mike Pence during a South Carolina event on Tuesday pushed back against that opinion, saying that “the risk that the coronavirus poses to young people is very low.”
“There are almost greater risks to children not being in school than there are to children being in school,” Pence said, a point which many private educators have made in explaining their decision to open in the fall.
