"Pervasively sectarian"

[Michael McConnell]

James Dwyer raises an interesting question about the "pervasively
sectarian" (PS) caetgory. In the past, this distinction has been
interpreted very crudely, to the effect that religious elementary and
secondary schools are PS, and nothing much else (except probably
houses of worship, but that has never come up).  This was a way of
justifying the status quo as of 30 years ago, in which government
funds were provided to all sorts of religiously affiliated
organizations (which are run by Protestants as well as others) and
not to schools (which were predominantly Catholic). The case in which
the distinction crystallized as a constitutional category, Tilton v.
Richardson, was a plurality opinion; a majority of the Court thought
the distinction was malarky. The doctrine did have a certain
functional value, however: since the PS judgment was unrelated to the
actual facts of the case, it could be administered without intrusive
and subjective examinations of degrees of religiosity. No religiously
affiliated elem or secondary school could get funding, no matter how
much it watered down its religious identity.  If the distinction is
to be taken seriously, as Columbia Union College shows, it will be an
entanglement nightmare, and will create an incentive for
secularization.

Catholic schools have not tended to challenge the PS categorization
in most cases, even though, as James Dwyer points out, they might
well succeed. I suspect this is because it would be awkward to admit
(to themselves and their communities) that religion is separate from
the rest of the curriculum, since their ostensible purpose is to
integrate religion into the rest of the curriculum.

I think the distinction is bad law and unsalvageable, since I
do not think there is any legitimate public purpose in discouraging
the integration of religious thought with the entire curriculum. That
is what my wife and I have tried to do in our homeschooling, with
highly satisfactory academic results. If "pervasively sectarian"
means that religious understandings may not be integrated into the
curriculum, it should be scrapped as a constitutional concept. It
promotes a particular view of religion.
-- Michael McConnell (U of Utah)