Universal Vouchers: A Gateway To Discrimination

At The Hill, Neal McCluskey (CATO) offers a version of argument he's often made on the tweeter machine, saying it might mark "the beginning of the end for religious discrimination in education." Here's the short version:

Unfortunately, when religion comes up in the choice debate it is typically to assert that choice violates the “separation of church and state,” or unacceptably lets people choose schools embracing beliefs that liberals, especially, dislike.

The former is just wrong: Rather than government establishing religion, choice keeps government neutral. On the latter point, liberals should openly condemn teachings they find abhorrent. But government favoring their values over others is a fundamental violation of equality under the law.

Government schools cannot be simultaneously secular and religious, Methodist and Buddhist, Jewish and Catholic. For this reason alone, everyone should celebrate the great expansion of school choice.

This post was going to be a twittering thread (McCluskey and I have had plenty of perfectly civil interactions via tweet), but then I realized it was going to be too long for, so I'll make my points here.

First, I don't accept the premise that "secular" requires hostility to religion. If you play in the percussion section, you aren't hostile to melody--it's just not your job to handle it. A secular education system doesn't try to fulfill any religious functions, for a variety of reasons we'll get into. 

There's another issue in that first point, which is the newly revived idea among some folks that they cannot fully and freely practice their religion unless they are free to discriminate against people of whom they disapprove, like the Mom who objects to having her child taught empathy because she believes there are some people her child should not feel empathy for. This is a whole other post, but my short answer is this--there is no placating these people as long as circumstances find them in a pluralistic society. 

But where I really disagree with McCluskey is in his central notion that by allowing everyone to retreat to their own personal bubbles, we can end all the various battles over culture and religion. But earlier in the piece, McCluskey himself points one reason that this will not work.

Foremost, because public schools are government institutions, and constitutionally, government cannot advance religion. This is for a good reason: If government could push religion, it would have to select one — Methodist? Catholic? Buddhist? — rendering all others second-class. And choosing any religion discriminates against atheists.

One of the things I appreciate about McCluskey is that he's not sloppy with language. "Push" and "advance" here keep the point separate from what universal choicers want, which is taxpayer support. The whole choice thesis is that by not using taxpayer funds to support private religious choice, the government is discriminating against religious folks (with the newest legal test of this theory coming to a courtroom in Maine). Again, this reasoning goes, I am not fully free to exercise my religion if the taxpayers aren't subsidizing my choice. 

I should get to practice in my little bubble, and the taxpayers should help pay for the bubble.

That's how this vision of choice leads to religious discrimination on an unprecedented scale and takes us all the way back to the question of separate but equal.

How much support is the government required to provide for my separate bubble? Here are some scenarios.

The Catholic school in my town has its own building. My tiny sect would like to send our children to our own private school, but we cannot afford a building for that school. Should taxpayer dollars be used to give us the same private educational option for free exercise that the Catholics have, or, since we have less money than the Catholic Church does, are we just SOL? 

The Church of the Very Rich sets up a private school runs on a very pricey tuition fee from its families, who just use their universal voucher money for books and uniforms and a college fund for the kids. Our Lady of Perpetual Poverty has to exist on voucher payments alone, offering far less to its students (many of whom applied for admission to CVR Academy, and were rejected). Can its parents sue because they are not getting the same opportunity to freely exercise their religion, or are they just SOL?

A local group wants to set up a private school in town, and while they claim to be religious, it seems that they are mainly focused on neo-Nazi ideology. Neighbors complain about the cross burning ceremonies, but the school claims they are important religious observances and their free exercise rights protect the rallies. Meanwhile, taxpayers are asking, "Why the heck are we paying for this?"

A variety of secular schools realize that if they re-configure themselves as religious schools, the "free exercise" clause is a ticket to the Land of Do As You Please and they can start discriminating against students and faculty in pretty much any way they wish as long as they claim that it's an essential part of their religion. This will force taxpayers to fund all sorts of things that they (and not just liberal especially) object to, from aryan supremacists to gender theory schools. One worst case scenario will be a government agency given the task of figuring out which religious schools are "real" religious schools and which are just playing games. The other worst case scenario will be states figuring out how to regulate these schools so that they can't discriminate in ways that would be illegal for anyone else. Or maybe we'll just have a government office of educational equality that makes sure that every religion gets an equal shake in the school funding/free exercise department. No way that could end badly.  None of these "solutions" will be popular.

Now that we're establishing that I can't have freedom to exercise my religion without enough of a taxpayer subsidy, who is going to decide how much subsidy is enough?

If all of this somehow runs smoothly, we'll be left with the traditional kind of discrimination--discrimination based on socio-economic class. Every family gets a voucher, but the wealthy folks in East Egg will essentially tax themselves to keep their own bubble school well-resourced, well-staffed, and well-supplied with all the nice extras. Meanwhile, it West Egg, parents with less wealth at their disposal will find that their vouchers, whether directed to public or private schools or fly-by-night pop-up schools meant simply to cash in (see also for-profit colleges), don't get them much. "But it's perfectly equal," voucher fans will argue. "Everyone gets the same cut of government money. If West Egg parents don't like the limited choices they have, they shouldn't have decided to be poor."

Meanwhile, 18-year olds from across the country emerge from their special bubbles like snowflakes falling under the hot sun of a pluralistic society, wondering why they too must contribute their tax dollars to these other schools where students are taught things that (as these graduates have learned their whole lives) are Evil and Wrong. 

I can imagine plenty of awful scenarios. What I can't imagine is how vouchers + religious schools results in a free and adequate education for every child or greater harmony and cohesions for our pluralistic nation. Yes, yes, I understand we haven't exactly mastered either of those things currently, but I don't see how vouchers + religious schools does anything except make matters worse.