A turn for the nurse
St. Louis’ Department of Health has been sending nurses into city parochial schools for decades. They do health screenings and make sure the children have received their immunizations.
Four nurses, all public employees, currently ride a circuit of 36 Catholic and Lutheran schools. They serve 7,300 children at an annual cost of $34 per child. The program is funded with revenue generated from the city use tax.
Missouri State Auditor Susan Montee criticized the program in her recently released audit report on the Department of Health. Her report complained that the program provides “public funds to a limited group without compensation” and that “sound business practices dictate city public funds should be used to benefit all city residents.”
What sounds like a church-state objection really isn’t. It’s a paperwork issue.
Neither the federal nor state constitutions say “that no government employee may ever set foot inside a religious school,” notes Washington University’s Ian MacMullen, an authority on educational politics and religious pluralism.
Ms. Montee told us that’s not what she’s worried about. She said she just wants to make sure that public money is being used to promote the welfare of all St. Louisans, and not just a narrow class of students associated with private or religious schools.
Students in the St. Louis Public Schools receive public health services, including immunization screenings, from the 15 to 20 nurses on the school district’s staff, said Pam Walker, the director of the city Health Department.
But parochial schools have no duty to share student immunization records. They participate in the city’s program on a voluntary basis, allowing health department nurses to follow their large population of students. This is sound public health policy.
And while the program now includes Catholic and Lutheran schools, the health department is interested in a partnership with any school run by any religious denomination.
Ms. Montee says this broad public purpose would satisfy the auditors. What’s missing is a formal statement from the mayor and the Board of Alderman confirming that this is the program’s governing policy. That would enable the auditor to properly gauge the health department’s performance.
That’s a fair suggestion. Let’s put a duly authorized, gold-sealed, red-ribboned resolution in the file — and express great thanks to the nurses who help to make sure all of St. Louis’ children stay healthy.
With all due respect to Professor MacMullen, his formulation of the issue ignores the question that courts would ask. As I explained a couple of days ago at http://www.showmedaily.org/2009/06/nursing-favoritism.html, the primary problem with the nursing program as it currently stands is the ultra-strict way in which Missouri courts have interpreted the state constitution and the fact that this program has only been extended to Catholic and Lutheran schools. Under the current religious liberties law in this state, it would almost certainly be struck down if someone were to bring a constitutional challenge.
If the program were restricted as a matter of policy to Catholic and Lutheran schools, your point would be correct — and likely under the U.S. Constitution as well. Prof. MacMullen assumed for the purposes of his analysis that the program permitted participation of all interested religious schools. The director of the Department of Health emphasized to us that there is no such restriction and the department would welcome partnerships with other religious-based schools that are interested in participating. This is an issue that I think the city would do well to clarify when recording a more formal statement of policy governing the program.
This editorial is leaving something out. Are the parochial schools refusing to provide immunization records to the Dept of Public Health, is there a privacy issue involved, or has no one actually requested their cooperation? And on the compensation issue, are students charged for such screenings in public schools but not in parochial ones?
While the inclusion of ALL private schools, regardless of whether or not they were religious, would satisfy the United States Constitution (under Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002)), a nursing program that was targeted to all religious schools in St. Louis would still probably violate the Establishment Clause because it would appear to favor religion over irreligion - and it would plainly still violate the Missouri Constitution.
However much I believe that it is a very poor idea to require the exclusion of religious organizations, groups, or individuals from generally-available and religiously-neutral public benefits, that is precisely what the Missouri Supreme Court has said is required under the Missouri Constitution. In McVey v. Hawkins, 258 S.W.2d 927 (Mo. 1953), the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the state was not permitted to provide bus service to ALL of the state’s students, regardless of where they attended, because to do so would unconstitutionally “aid” religious schools. The Court followed form in Paster v. Tussey, 512 S.W.2d 97 (Mo. 1974), reviewing a statute that provided free textbooks to ALL Missouri students. The Court held that the Missouri Constitution would not permit even such a universal benefit insofar as religious schools might benefit from it.
To be sure, I think that the Missouri Constitution’s requirements (as they have been interpreted by the Missouri Supreme Court) are a very poor idea, a violation of the U. S. Constitution, and plain old immoral to boot. But until either the Missouri courts change their reading of these provisions, or the people of the state amend their constitution, or the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down this mandated religious discrimination, it will remain binding in this state.
Can any one point to me the section in the Constitution and/or The Bill of Rights where it is labled “Establishment Clause”. It DOES NOT EXIST in the signed documents. Funny how people refer to something that doen’t exist.
To Joey of P.B.,
You say-”Can any one point to me the section in the Constitution and/or The Bill of Rights where it is labled “Establishment Clause”. It DOES NOT EXIST in the signed documents. Funny how people refer to something that doen’t exist.”
The first amendment of the Bill of Rights states-”Congress shall make no law respecting an ESTABLISHMENT of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Capitals are mine. What you probably meant to say instead of establishment clause is what religious bible literalists commonly refer to as the “wall of separation between church and state.” This phrase is not in the constitution, but is the basis for many rulings of the Supreme Court. Why should this be so? Because in interpreting the constitution (which is the job of the Supreme Court), they have in many cases had to look at the writings of the founding fathers to determine their INTENT when they wrote the Constitution. The “wall of separation” comes from correspondence between Jefferson and Madison if I remember correctly. Sometimes the wording of the constitution has left the meaning of a sentence debatable with respect to how the law should be applied. The Supreme Court has made some colossal blunders in interpretation over the two+ odd centuries of their existence, IMHO this is not one of them.
My mistake it came from a letter Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists.
Hell may freeze over, but Eddie Roth is right on this one. People don’t understand the difference between separation of church and state. If the nurses were being paid to preach religous teaching in the schools, that would be a different story. This is “about the children” and their health.
The last time I checked, these children are residents of Missouri and I will assume that their parents pay real estate and other taxes in Missouri that pay these nurses.
The state of Missouri and its residents should thank God that there are parents out their willing to spend their limited dollars on private schools for their children. Can you imagine if all the private schools were shut down and all those children were put into your local public school system?
I’d say this is a bargain compared to what that would cost.
Now, go find something more constructive to complain about like why Walpin was fired when Americorp funds were being misused in Sacramento and the media ignores the story. I would think there would be at least a small amount of anger when an Inspector General is illegally fired for finding fraudulent activity. But sadly, no.
Allow me to clarify again - I’m complaining about what the courts say the constitution requires. I think the best policy would be complete religious neutrality, meaning that the government would no longer have to exclude religious people or groups from benefits that are available to everyone else. But to get to that state of affairs, the law has to change. If anyone else wants to pass a constitutional amendment that would fix this, I’ll be happy to help.