Disability Rights and Religious Liberty in Education by Bruce J. Dierenfield

Author:Bruce J. Dierenfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

5SIGNING, SECTARIAN SCHOOLS, AND THE LAW

HIGH STAKES

The Zobrest lawsuit involved the human drama of a deaf young man who needed an interpreter’s services to get an education that promised a “normal” life. Jim Zobrest was one of eighteen thousand profoundly deaf students in America, with eight thousand of them having an interpreter. What brought his case to the fore was his parents’ claim that the government should pay for the interpreter in a sectarian school. Among other things, their suit presented an opportunity to untangle the U.S. Supreme Court’s confusing jurisprudence involving church and state issues. University of Notre Dame law professor Douglas W. Kmiec characterized this jurisprudence as “profoundly amiss.” Kmiec noted that “the Court has several formulas that it uses to analyze the First Amendment. These tests are extremely idiosyncratic and difficult to apply. It is important for the court to pick one standard, and it would be nice to have that standard go back to the original purpose of the First Amendment … to promote religious freedom by neither prohibiting beliefs nor prescribing them.” The stakes in the Zobrest case, then, were high. If the Zobrests won, their eldest son—and the disabled children of other parents—would get the assistance they needed to succeed in whatever educational setting they chose, including sectarian schools. Moreover, the court might have to come to grips with its zig-zag jurisprudence involving religious establishment.1

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