I think people are aware that funding may bring more regulation. Judges tend to defer to government conditions attached to money, even though some of those conditions raise serious questions of unconstitutional conditions.
The fear has lost much of its force in part because of Smith and the underenforcement or nonenforcement of state RFRAs. If these institutions are going to be regulated anyway, they have less to lose by taking the money. And if you look at the history of evangelical schools, where many of these claims are coming from, first they fought out the regulatory issues, in mostly unsuccessful litigation and in state legislatures and before state boards of education. Only after most of those issues were resolved one way or the other did they begin to push for equal access to government money. I’m less certain about this second point, but I think that many of them feel that the risk of extra conditions attached to money is smaller than the risk of fighting a culture war where the other side is government funded. Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Eric J Segall Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2017 5:17 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Subject: Re: Trinity Lutheran and the ERISA cases - Do Churches Want Special Treatment or Not? When I worked for DOJ in the late 80's and litigated a major Chapter (now I think Title) 2 funding case in San Francisco, the main plaintiff's lawyer was a devout 7th Day Adventist who strongly feared government grants to religious schools would ultimately dissipate religious freedom. Many religious folks at the time held this view. I agree with Marty and Chris that this view seems to have largely disappeared. Best, Eric Sent from my iPhone
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
