Court Opinion

ID: 9674119
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:23:23.090033+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:25.654813
License: Public Domain

HOGG, Judge
(dissenting).
In good conscience I cannot agree with the majority opinion. While I have no sectarian prejudice and no sense of religious intolerance, and while I profoundly respect the religious faith of the membership of the Catholic Church, as I do the creeds of all church denominations, at the same time I deeply respect and strongly adhere to the fundamental principle established by the wisdom of the founding fathers of the absolute and unequivocal separation of church and state.
It is the determined policy and-purpose of the- American people that our public school system, supported by taxation of all alike — Catholic, Protestant, Jew, believer and infidel — shall not be used directly .or. indirectly for religious instruction. Above all, that no school shall be made an instrumentality of proselyting influence in favor of any religious organization, sect, creed or belief. Knowlton v. Baumhover, 182 Iowa 691, 166 N.W. 202, 207, 5 A.L.R. 841. And, as said in that opinion: “To constitute a sectarian school or sectarian in-' struction which may not lawfully be maintained at public expense, it is not necessary to show that the school is wholly devoted to religious or sectarian teaching.” What is generally regarded as sectarianism, or the special tenets of any branch of any church, whether it be Christian or Jew or Moslem, must not be directly "or indirectly or subtly taught or inculcated in our system of public schools.
For ready reference I repeat the descrip- > tion of the striking and distinctive habiliments the Sisters .wear in the schoolroom: “A tunic and scapular of white wool. The tunic is girded with a leather belt to which *809is attached a rosary. The head is covered with a veil, a guimpe and a white linen headband. A mantle of black wool is worn when traveling.” These robes of religious identification are familiar to the public, and the rosary, or prayer beads with a crucifix, are peculiarly Roman Catholic.
We have no statute prescribing the fashion of dress or prohibiting a uniform of any kind to be worn by teachers in the public schools. If wearing the- Sisters’ distinctive uniform, with its identifying religious insignia, is unlawful, it must be found in one or the other or both1 the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of'Kentucky. However, KRS 158.-190 prohibits the use of any “book or other publication of a sectarian” character and “No sectarian * * * doctrine shall be taught in any common school.”
The First Amendment of the Federal Constitution contains this prohibition: “Congress shall make no law respecting an estáblishment of religion, or prohibiting the- free exercise thereof”. The- Supreme Court has held that -this became a restraint on the States by the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. 11 Am.Jur.., Constitutional Law, Sec. 312. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711, 168 A.L.R. 1392.
Section 5 of the Constitution of Kentucky reads:
“No preference shall ever be given by law to any religious sect, society or denomination; nor to any particular ■ creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical polity; nor shall any person be compelled to attend any place of worship, to contribute to the erection or maintenance of any such place, or to the salary or support of any minister of religion; nor shall any man be compelled to send his child to any school to which he may be consci.entiously opposed; and the civil rights, privileges or capacities- of no person shall be taken away, or in anywise diminished or enlarged, on account of his belief or disbelief, of any religious tenet, dogma or teaching. No human authority shall, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the .rights of conscience.”
Section 189 of our Constitution reads:
“No portion of any fund or tax now existing, or that may hereafter be raised or levied for educational purposes,, shall be appropriated,. to, or used by,, or in aid of, any church, sectarian or denominational school.”
These provisions in substantially the same language have been contained in all the constitutions of Kentucky.
It will be noted our Constitution is specifically positive in its prohibitions, while the Federal Constitution merely prohibits Congress from passing any law respecting the establishment of religion, and that has been expanded by judicial.construction.
The distinctive garbs, so exclusively peculiar to the Roman Catholic Church, create a religious atmosphere in the schoolroom. They have a subtle influence upon the tender minds being taught and trained by the nuns. In and of themselves they proclaim the Catholic Church and the representative character of the teachers in the schoolroom. They silently promulgate sectarianism.
Indeed, these good women are the Catholic Church in action in the most fertile field — the impressionable minds o'f the children. The children and all others well know the Sisters have sacrifically withdrawn themselves from their own families and live separate and apart from them and1 from the world in convents or religious groups or co'mmunities which are always near ■ or attached to the church edifice. They have discarded their family and legal names and live and teach under assumed religious names. Each of them is known and called “Sister” even as every Catholic priest is known and called “Father.” They have withdrawn from all temporal affairs except such as are Incidental to their charitable and religious lives. Many of us have highly appreciated the kind and - devoted *810ministrations of the Sisters in the Catholic Hospitals. We and all other patients were well aware, without it being expressed, that the nurses in their ministrations were in the service of their Church.
It is well known that the Catholic Church maintains its own parochial schools, and forbids its children attending the public schools — as it has the perfect right to do. It is so provided in the Canon Law of the Church, as is stipulated in this record and published in many opinions of the courts, particularly in the dissenting opinion in Everson v. Board of Education, supra, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711, 168 A.L.R. 1392. The children who attend the public schools and their parents are, with rare exceptions, Protestants. But by the majority opinion these children and their parents are deprived of their constitutional right to be free from sectarian influence and indirect teachings of the Catholic Church at public expense. It is of significance that the nuns pursue their vocations of nursing and teaching and charitable service in Catholic institutions excepting only when opportunity is afforded to teach in public schools; and Catholic children do not attend public schools except where teachers are nuns.
By their vows of poverty, no estate or money coming to the Sisters may be retained for their personal use. It is passed on to their Church and its activities, or, as is stipulated in this record, to the particular order or community as an integral part of the church. Thus, the nuns are but conduits through which pass the salaries received from the State. They are but the agents of a principal. They are subordinate and obedient in all things to their ecclesiastical superiors. The fact that the checks of the school authorities are drawn in their religious names and so endorsed, is a mere matter of form.
Let us examine the case law of the subject.
The employment of teachers who dress in their religious habiliments as affecting the public character of a school has been the source of much controversy, and, as might be expected, the decisions are basecj upon diversity of facts.
The majority opinion cites for support of the decision Hysong v. Gallitzin Borough School District, 164 Pa. 629, 30 A. 482, 26 L.R.A. 203, 44 Am.St.Rep. 623 (decided in 1894). That case has not been dealt with very gently. Six months after it was delivered the Pennsylvania legislature enacted a statute, with appropriate preamble as to policy and purpose, prohibiting any teacher from wearing in a public school or while engaged in the performance of his or her duty any “ ‘dress, mark, emblem or insignia indicating the fact that such teacher is a member or adherent of any religious order, sect or denomination’ ”. Act June 27, 1895, P.L. 395. The statute was sustained in Commonwealth v. Herr, 229 Pa. 132, 78 A. 68, 73, Ann.Cas.1912A, 422.
Three courts have expressly ' rejected the majority Hysong opinion — Iowa, New York, and New Mexico — and accepted the dissenting opinion. I have not found where any court has heretofore followed the majority opinion, except Gerhardt v. Heid, 66 N.D. 444, 267 N.W. 127, to which I shall later refer.
The Iowa Supreme Court in Knowlton v. Baumhover, 182 Iowa 691, 166 N.W. 202, 209, 5 A.L.R. 841, 853, expressly rejected the conclusions of the Hysong opinion, saying the court “distinctly [refuses] to recognize the authority of the majority opinion”, and adopted and approved the following language from the dissenting opinion as being in accord with the weight of authority:
“ ‘They,’ the teachers when thus arrayed, says the opinion, ‘come into the schools, not as common school-teachers, or as civilians, but as the representatives of a particular order in a particular church whose lives have been dedicated to religious work under the direction of that church. Now the point of the objection is not that their religion disqualifies them. It does not * * *. It is not that holding an ec*811clesiastical office or position disqualifies them, for it does not. It is the introduction into the schools as teachers of persons who are by their striking and distinctive ecclesiastical robes, necessarily and constantly asserting their membership in a particular church, and in a religious order within that church, and the subjection of their lives to the direction and control of its officers.’ ”
Likewise, the New York court in O’Connor v. Hendrick, 184 N.Y. 421, 77 N.E. 612, 7 L.R.A.,N.S., 402, rejected the majority opinion in the Hysong case, and followed the minority opinion, saying that the distinctive religious costume of teachers who were members of a religious society connected with the Roman Catholic Church, worn at all times in the presence of their pupils, would tend to inspire respect, if not sympathy, for the religious denomination, to which they so manifestly belonged, and to that extent the influence was sectarian, even if it did not amount to the teaching of denominational doctrine.
The New Mexico court likewise rejected, the Hysong case in Zellers v. Huff, 55 N.M. 501, 236 P.2d 949, to be specially considered later on.
But there is one thing said in the Hysong opinion worthy of acceptance, that wearing the garb tends to promote religion; and, “Insensibly, in both young and old, there is a disposition to reverence such a one, and at least, to some extent, consider the life as the fruit of the particular religion.” [164 Pa. 629, 30 A. 484.]
The majority opinion disregards O’Connor v. Hendrick, 184 N.Y. 421, 77 N.E. 612, 614, 7 L.R.A.,N.S., 402, 6 Ann.Cas. 432, and says it is not in point. The particular question was the validity of a regulation issued by the State Superintendent of Schools which prohibited the wearing of religious garbs by a teacher in the public school. But the Court went on to say that the regulation was in accord with “the plainest possible declaration of the public policy of the state as opposed to the prevalence of sectarian influences in the public schools. It added:
“There can be little doubt that the . effect of the costume worn by these , Sisters of St. Joseph at all times in the presence of their pupils would be .to inspire respect, if not sympathy, for the religious denomination to which they so manifestly belong. To this extent the influence was sectarian, even if it did not amount to the teaching of denominational doctrine.”
Gerhardt v. Heid, 66 N.D. 444, 267 N.W. 127, 134, is cited in the majority opinion as being in line with the Hysong case. The •Gerhardt case involved the wearing of religious garbs in public schools. The decision was that such raiment did not convert a school into a “sectarian school” nor bring it within the meaning of the North Dakota Constitution, § 152, declaring that no public school taxes “shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.” The case turned on the meaning of the word “control” which was defined as being “‘the act or fact'of controlling; power or authority to control; directing or restraining domination’ ”, I think our constitutional provision is .much broader. '
The majority opinion properly distinguishes Berghorn v. Reorganized School District, 364 Mo. 121, 260 S.W.2d 573. Another Missouri case presenting like extreme conditions where a public school had substantially become a parochial school, is Harfst v. Hoegen, 349 Mo. 808, 163 S.W.2d 609, 141 A.L.R. 1136. The opinion is confined to the consideration of the question of payment of salaries to the nun teachers. The court held such payments violated the constitutional inhibition against the payment of public school money to sustain, a school controlled by a sectarian denomination.
We have one Kentucky case which is in point in principle, Williams v. Board of Trustees Stanton Common School District, 173 Ky. 708, 191 S.W. 507, 514, L.R.A. 1917D, 453. The majority opinion says it is distinguishable. So it is as to the facts but *812not as to the principle controlling the decision. Under contract, public school authorities used Presbyterian school property with two teachers paid by that denomination. The arrangement quite intimately fused the public and sectarian institution in the higher or college grades. A minority of’tlie patrons objected to the arrangement. In an able opinion by Judge Carroll, this court expressed no disposition to doubt that the arrangement was beneficial to the children but found it “was opposed to the spirit of the laws, and its invalidity is not to be condoned” because the trustees and a majority- of the patrons, or even every one of them, approved it. Said this court:
“The Constitution not only forbids the appropriation for any purpose or in any manner of the common school funds to sectarian or denominational institutions, but it contemplates that the separation between the common school and the sectarian or denominational school or institution shall be so open, notorious, and complete that there can be no room for reasonable doubt that the common school is absolutely free from the influence, control, or domination of the sectarian institution or school.”
And further:
“The common school, however humble its surroundings or deficient its curriculum, is the most valuable public institution in the state, and its efficiency and worth must not be impaired or destroyed by entangling it in denominational or sectarian alliances.” (My emphasis.)
Thus, this court has spoken most forcefully on the subject of separation of church and state.
In recent years, the Supreme Court of the United States has greatly expanded the meaning and application of the First Amendment and consistently kept the Church on one side and the State on the other from chipping away or penetrating the “wall of separation.” The effect of two late decisions has been to nullify many previous State decisions.
The breadth and effect of the terse, simple provision of the First Amendment as to “establishment of religion” (applicable, as stated above, to the States) is exemplified in People of State of Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203; 68 S.Ct. 461, 467, 92 L.Ed. 649, 2 A.L.R.2d 1338. That opinion reversed the Supreme Court of Illinois and held that an “avowed atheist” with a child enrolled in a public school had the right to require the school board, to prohibit religious instruction, even though attendance on the classes was with the express consent of the parents, on released time in classes conducted in a school building by outside teachers furnished by a religious council representing Catholic, Protestant and Jewish faiths, under the supervision'of the superintendent of the school. The ground of the opinion was that the practice was a violation of the principle of separation.of church and state.
In concurring opinions in the McCollum case, Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Jackson, extensively reviewed the historical struggle, setting and development of the First Amendment. Justice Frankfurter wrote [333 U.S. 203, 68 S.Ct. 467]:
“Zealous watchfulness against fusion of secular and religious activities by Government itself, through any of its instruments but especially through its educational agencies, was the democratic response of the American community to the particular needs of a young and growing nation, unique in the composition of its people.”
The several opinions, including the dissent by Mr. Justice Reed, eloquently and forcefully declare the strictness of the Constitutional principle. The majority opinion in this case seems to me to be at variance with their reasoning and conclusion.
Previously, in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 511, 91 L. Ed. 711, 168 A.L.R. 1392, the Court had *813held the First Amendment to mean, at least, inter alia:
“No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or group9 and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.’ ”
The opinion concludes: “That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.”
This was quoted and accepted, of course, as good law, in Zellers v. Huff, 55 N.M. 501, 236 P.2d 949, which seems to be the latest decision on the subject. The New Mexico Court, as stated above, rejected the majority opinion in the Hysong case. It distinguished Gerhardt v. Heid, 66 N.D. 444, 267 N.W. 127, with the observation that there was no teaching of religion or wearing of emblems by the nuns except for a few days in the opening of the school term. Influenced by other state cases, but more particularly by the principles announced by the Supreme Court in the Ever-son and McCollum cases, the New Mexico court upheld a resolution adopted by the State Board of Education barring the wearing of religious garb by public school teachers. But that was not all, as the majority opinion indicates. After doing so, the Court wrote [55 N.M. 501, 236 P.2d 964] :
“However, in view of the frequent changes in the personnel of the State Board of Education and the danger of a restoration of such practice, we feel compelled to announce our decision that the wearing of religious garb and religious insignia-must be henceforth barred, during the time the Religious are on duty as public school teachers.”
The garbs of the Catholic .Sisters are not merely an odd mode or style of dress nor mere badges of office or tokens of sisterhood. The habit is strictly and prominently religious. Its purpose proclaims identity and doctrinal religious service.
If some of the many school-teachers who are members of the Baptist or Methodist or any other Protestant Church should withdraw from outside activities except those of their Church and reside in a community home apart from all other people and become subservient to ecclesiastical authority and wear some distinctive garb or uniform setting them apart from others of their profession and wear conspicuous badges prominently declaiming, “I am a Baptist,” or Methodist, or the like, with insignia that they are devoting their complete lives in the service of their denominational churches; or if clergymen should go into the schoolroom as teachers wearing their canonical robes, with prayer books suspended from their necks, I would be the first to condemn the practice and to declare that this was the injection of the particular denominational religion into the schoolhouse and teaching of the children.
By no stretch of the imagination would I deny the Sisters the right to teach in oúr public schools. Let these Sisters when in the schoolrooms exchange their religious raiment and insignia for a dress or garment that is without distinctive suggestion and which does not itself proclaim sectarianism in action, and I shall be the first to approve.
Upon reason and authority, I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion to the extent indicated.