The Secular Education Cops Strike Again

They're picking a legal fight with a member of the tribe? Have they lost their minds?

Worse, suppose Bibi hears about this!

The Secular Education Cops Strike Again

New York sues a family that sent an autistic son to a Jewish school.

By The Editorial Board, WSJ

Jan. 1, 2025 5:32 pm ET

Progressives are relentless in trying to block public funding for religious schools, and take a look at how this is playing out in New York. The state Board of Education is suing a Jewish family to claw back tuition for their 7-year-old autistic child (Board of Education v. E.L.).

Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, students with special needs are granted appropriate accommodations for education. That means all students are entitled to an individual education plan (IEP) that can serve their academic needs. If a public school can’t support a special-needs child in the classroom, parents can be reimbursed for the cost of a private education that will.

In New York City in 2022, the autistic child’s family went through the process to develop an IEP with the local public school, but the plan wasn’t adequate to support their son, whose condition includes academic and motor-skill issues. In 2022-23, they sent their son to the Irving Montak Sinai School at SAR Academy in the Bronx, a Jewish parochial school.

The accommodation was first evaluated by an Impartial Hearing Officer (IHO) who ruled that the public school had failed to provide an adequate education and the Sinai school was an appropriate placement. The IHO ruled the family shouldn’t be reimbursed for the religious portion of the education, but that was later overturned by a state review officer (SRO).

Rather than abide by that decision, the New York City Department of Education is suing for its money back, arguing the SRO “improperly ordered DOE to pay for a kindergarten student’s religious instruction.” Though a kindergartner needs to learn how to read, New York objects to reimbursing the school for parts of the academic program that include reading about Jewish holidays. The secular education police really are nasty.

New York says government funds may not pay for “[r]eligious worship, instruction, or proselytization.” But the Supreme Court has considered similar cases on state funding of religious schools. In Carson v. Makin (2022) the Court rejected a tuition assistance program in Maine that was available only to “nonsectarian” schools. The Justices ruled that to prevent religious discrimination, any funding available to a secular school must be equally available to a religious school.

In Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017), the Supreme Court said that requiring a child learning center to “renounce its religious character in order to participate in an otherwise generally available public benefit program” violates the free-exercise clause. And in Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue (2020), Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the free-exercise clause “protects religious observers against unequal treatment.”

The family is waiting for the court to rule on cross motions for summary judgment. New York doesn’t dispute that the public schools can’t meet the educational needs of the autistic child. The only question is whether his family should have to pay the state because the school they chose is too Jewish. We hope the ruling against New York is appropriately caustic.