Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh—like his first nominee Neil Gorsuch—is good news for voucher advocates. He is the linchpin to achieving Betsy DeVos’s dream of sending public money to religious and private schools, despite the fact that many teach creationism as science, exclude LGBT students and staff, and teach bizarre doctrines. When Democrats regain control of the institutions of government, they should be sure to establish strict government regulations that establish strict accountability for private and religious schools that take public money so that they are held to the same standards of curriculum, testing, teacher qualifications, and non-discrimination as public schools.

The New York Times reports on his record of challenging the “wall of separation” between church and state.

“Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, in a speech last year, gave a strong hint at his views on taxpayer support for religious schools when he praised his “first judicial hero,” Justice William Rehnquist, for determining that the strict wall between church and state “was wrong as a matter of law and history.”
Mr. Rehnquist’s legacy on religious issues was most profound in “ensuring that religious schools and religious institutions could participate as equals in society and in state benefits programs,” Judge Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to succeed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court, declared at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization.

“Words like that from a Supreme Court nominee are breathing new life into the debate over public funding for sectarian education. Educators see him as crucial to answering a question left by Justice Kennedy after the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for the state of Missouri to exclude a church-based preschool from competing for public funding to upgrade its playground: Can a church-school playground pave the way for taxpayer funding to flow to private and parochial schools for almost any purpose?

“Over his decades-long legal career, Judge Kavanaugh has argued in favor of breaking down barriers between church and state. He has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of school prayer and the right of religious groups to gain access to public school facilities. He was part of the legal team that represented former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida in 2000 when he defended a school voucher program that was later ruled unconstitutional. The program had used public funds to help pay the tuition of students leaving some of the state’s lowest-performing schools for private or religious schools.

“School voucher champions see Judge Kavanaugh as a critical vote in overturning longstanding constitutional prohibitions, often called Blaine Amendments, that outlaw government funding of religious institutions in more than three dozen states. The amendments have been used to challenge programs that allow taxpayer funding to follow children to private and parochial schools, and are seen as the last line of defense against widespread acceptance of school voucher programs.”