Ever since the 2016 Presidential campaign, many Never Trumpers have decried President Trump’s “unorthodox” approach to faith. However, his administration has made (dare I say) “huuge” strides in religious freedom. The Education Secretary Betsy DeVos who said the government would no longer enforce a federal law prohibiting religious organizations from partnering with private schools to provide federally funded “equitable services.”
Equitable services include activities such as tutoring, mentoring and professional development classes. How did we get to the point where services were filtered through the lens of faith?
In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was interpreted to require school districts must provide comparable services to educationally disadvantaged privately as well as publicly schooled students. However, the government soon said that none of that money could directly be delivered to private schools. Instead, local districts had to either provide the services or contract them out. “As implemented, federal law dictated that religious organizations were summarily barred from working as contractors with private schools,” write Frederick M. Hess and Brendan Bell of the American Enterprise Institute, “even when well suited for the work.”
These restrictions weren’t put in place because of the oh-so-discussed-but-misunderstood “separation of church and state.” These religious organizations were not tutoring using the Great Commission as a written text. The mentoring classes were not attempting to make the students more like Jesus. The math education classes weren’t focused on adding or subtracting the various Ten Commandments. In fact, no evangelism was occurring at all, yet the government continued to discriminate against these providers based solely on their religious affiliation.
Please enjoy this article on The Daily Caller.