Increasingly, the inner city turned to the private sector. The growing enthusiasm for parochial education among African-Americans changed the face of these schools. By the late 1990s, the number of non-Catholics in these schools quadrupled. This reality caused the appeal and popularity of vouchers. Once it became clear that vouchers would not benefit the Catholic Church at the expense of other denominations, evangelical Protestants got on board.
Vouchers are now a panacea in many parts of the country.
In this pluralistic culture, religious identity has become just another prefix in American culture. The legal underpinnings of the strict separation have begun to collapse. For example, in 1981 in the Widmar case, the Supreme Court agreed that when a public institution opens its facilities to private speakers, the First Amendment requires it to treat religious and nonreligious groups equally. Also, in 1995 the Court agreed in the Rosenberger case that when a University subsidized through the student activities fees all publications of student opinion, religious newspapers deserved equal treatment. In December 1999 the Court heard argument that state aid to religious schools is constitutionally permitted as long as it is part of a neutral scheme that provides benefits to private sector schools as well.