In Defense of Conditional Funding of Religious Schools

Abstract

The Article defends against various objections, the practice of funding religious schools and other faith-based social service providers, but only on condition that they comply with various public regulations and requirements. Critics of conditional funding—including Moshe Cohen- Eliya—argue that conditional funding is coercive and unfair to poorer religious parents, is often divisive or ineffective, and it threatens the autonomy and integrity of religious communities by putting a price on (or increasing the cost of) some of their religious practices; it would be better simply to prohibit the disfavored educational practices targeted by funding conditionalities. I argue that typical funding conditionalities are not objectionably coercive as long as they are designed to advance defensible public purposes. Unfairness to the poor should be addressed by general redistributive policies. The Article allows that funding conditionalities might undermine religious communities’ integrity, and cause social divisions, but that these concerns are speculative and not an adequate basis for disallowing in advance conditional public funding of faith-based institutions.