(Oct. 26)
One would think an overwhelmingly Republican, presumably conservative Louisiana Legislature would protect, rather than discriminate against, faith-based schools.
That thought would be wrong. Bizarrely, the Legislature this year passed a bill burdening faith-based and other private preschools, but not public schools or Montessori schools, with a host of costly, invasive and counterproductive regulations.
Two schools and some parents filed suit Oct. 20 to block the new law, asserting that by disfavoring religious schools it violates the First Amendment (free exercise of religion), and also that by treating certain classes of schools differently from others it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Sarah Harbison of the Louisiana-based Pelican Institute, a conservative think tank, is the lead attorney, joined by a lawyer for the Center for American Rights.
On its face, the lawsuit has a good chance of success, and rightly so. A long series of Supreme Court cases in the past 25 years has made clear that constitutional protections are strong for faith-based entities, especially schools, which are treated differently than other similar institutions that aren’t faith-based. And faith-based parents have rights, too, to have equal opportunity to choose faith-based educational options.
About 80% of the 254 preschools affected statewide are faith-based — mostly Christian, but also Jewish and Muslim. But even for nonreligious private schools, why should they and their families be subject to regulations that Montessori schools or public schools escape? That’s patently unfair.
The Legislature passed this law unanimously, supposedly to ensure safe treatment of young children by requiring the preschools to meet the same licensing requirements that day care centers do. But why treat three-and four-year-olds under the same rules as infants? That’s what this law does, even if the preschools are part of larger schools going up to fifth or eighth grade. As the lawsuit notes, almost all the schools affected already undergo rigorous accreditation reviews through their churches or regional accrediting agencies.
Why are church schools assumed to be less safe than Montessori schools or public ones? Indeed, one reason many parents choose private schools is that they are presumed safer than institutional public schools that are too big for most students to receive individual attention…. [The rest of this column is at this link.]
