David Gerber & Bruce J. Dierenfield:Religious Liberty & Disability Rights in Education
Channel: GIRES-Global Research Institute
Date: 2021-08-09

FULL TITLE:Religious Liberty and Disability Rights in Education: The Clash of Statute and Constitutional Law in Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District-1993

David A. Gerber is University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus and Senior Fellow in History and in Disability Studies, and the author of works on social and personal identities, group formation , and participation in public life and in civil society in the contexts of race, ethnicity, social class, and religion.

Bruce J. Dierenfield is Professor of History Emeritus and a former Kenneth L. Koessler Distinguished Professor at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of works on civil rights and civil liberties in the United States, including a prize-winning examination of
church-state jurisprudence.

ABSTRACT
When Sandi and Larry Zobrest decided to remove their deaf son James from the public schools and to send him to a Roman Catholic high school in Tucson, Arizona, they set in motion a lawsuit that would preoccupy them for five years and ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (1975), disabled students are entitled to assistive resources, such as the signed language interpreter James required, so that they can obtain an education in the least restrictive institutional environment alongside their non-disabled peers. The law did not make clear, however, whether those resources were portable to a church-affiliated school, and hence left in doubt the access to publicly funded resources of many thousands of disabled students attending such schools. Under evolving First Amendment doctrine, there were ample precedents that suggested the Zobrests claim to resources breached Jefferson's problematic and often-contested "wall of separation" between church and state. This presentation will review the issues at stake in the Zobrest law suit, and analyze the Court majority's decision in favor of the Zobrests in the face of its own recent separationist doctrine. The authors conclude that the Court majority was eager to use the Zobrest lawsuit less to advance the rights of people with disabilities than to take a step toward a more accommodationist stance in church-state jurisprudence.


CONFERENCE INFORMATION
"Religion and Politics in the United States"
Organizer: GIRES-Global Institute for Research Education & Scholarship  
Date: 17-18 July 2021
Place: Amsterdam (Virtual)
More information: https://www.gires.org/activities/conferences/religion-and-politics-in-the-united-states/