Faith-based schools should have equal access to government programs, assistant attorney general Eric Dreiband argued Tuesday during a discussion about religious liberty.
“Religious individuals and groups and institutions should be treated equally and not face disabilities because they are religious in nature,” Dreiband said at an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Dreiband said the Department of Justice follows the principle of “equal treatment” for religious organizations and cited two cases in which religious schools are being excluded from government programs.
In one case, the Montana legislature enacted a program to give tax credits to individuals who donate to private scholarship organizations. The Montana Department of Revenue established a rule forbidding scholarship recipients from using the money to attend religious schools, citing a constitutional provision that bans “direct or indirect” public funding of religious schools. In the other case, the state of Maine forbids students participating in a public tuition-funding program from attending religious schools.
Dreiband argued the state is violating the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty in both cases.
The event also featured Reed Rubinstein, acting general counsel at the Department of Education, and Roger Severino, director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Severino highlighted regulations implemented by his department to protect the religious convictions of organizations that object to Obamacare’s mandate that employer health insurance plans cover contraception. He also discussed a recent conscience-protection case involving the University of Vermont Medical Center.
In that case, a federal investigation found the hospital forced a Catholic nurse to help with an abortion despite her moral objections to the procedure. The Trump administration sent a notice warning the hospital to protect conscience rights for its employees.
But despite the administration’s efforts to uphold religious liberty, Severino said, it is important to institutionalize, not just enforce, religious freedom protections.
“Whether or not religious liberty and the enforcement of our laws rises or falls should not have to depend on who sits in my office,” said Severino.
