The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has learned on numerous occasions over the past several years about blatantly sectarian Christian religious programs and Christian proselytizing in the military.
The school was designed for at-risk kids, and the charter agreement, signed by all seven co-founders, mandated that the publicly funded school "is and will be non-sectarian in all programs, admission policies, employment practices and all other operations".
Four justices -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy -- indicated a likely willingness to uphold voucher schemes, reasoning in an opinion by Justice Thomas that it is "bigotry" to exclude "pervasively sectarian schools from otherwise permissible aid programs".
He said that "nothing in the Establishment Clause requires the exclusion of pervasively sectarian schools from otherwise permissible aid programs," and that the cases that supported such exclusion, "born of bigotry, should be buried now".
"Such massacres, such atrocities, definitely push the narrative of those who say this is a sectarian conflict," said Fadi Salem, a program director at the Dubai School of Government.
In 1966, however, the Board of Trustees got a court order that allowed them to change the non-sectarian clause in Stanford's charter so that they could expand the university's religious program, which included permitting sectarian worship services at Stanford Memorial Church.
While the House bill would bar federal subsidies for religious activities themselves, it clearly permits praying, proselytizing, religious counseling and other sectarian activities to be part of a program receiving federal funds.
In 1984, a majority opinion by Justice Brennan struck down a New York City program that brought remedial teachers into sectarian schools to teach low-income children.
Based in large part on that outcome, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati declared in December 2000 that the program had the "impermissible effect of promoting sectarian schools" and thus violated the First Amendment's prohibition against the "establishment" of religion.
These successes have been noticed and the program has been scaled up to begin addressing sectarian conflict in light of the 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall and other acts of violent extremism.
