State Grant To Lakewood Yeshiva Ruled Unconstitutional By Appellate Court

A New Jersey appellate court has ruled the that the administration of Gov. Chris Christie violated the state's Constitution when it awarded a grant of nearly $11 million to an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva in Lakewood, according to a news release from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Beth Medrash Govoha, an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva in Lakewood, was one of two religious institutions of higher learning whose grants from the state were challenged by the ACLU and Americans United, the release said.

Beth Medrash Govoha received $10.6 million, and Princeton Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian seminary, received $645,323, and according to the ACLU both are dedicated to religious training and engage in discrimination. The yeshiva trains Orthodox Jewish rabbis, excludes women, and employs only male, Jewish faculty. The seminary “prepares women and men to serve Jesus Christ in ministries” and permits only Christians to be degree students or faculty, the release said.

The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State challenged the grants on the basis that awarding grants of taxpayer money to the two organizations was a violation of the state Constitution, which specifically forbids taxpayer funds from going toward the maintenance of a church or ministry.

The decision represents the first major state court precedent in almost 40 years concerning New Jersey’s prohibition on using taxpayer funding to support a religious ministry," the news release said.

“This is a victory for civil rights and a victory for New Jersey taxpayers, who should never have to subsidize institutions that discriminate or that exist to teach their particular religious doctrine,” said ACLU-NJ Legal Director Ed Barocas. “Everyone has a fundamental constitutional right to worship freely. At the same time, the government must respect the right of New Jersey taxpayers to know that their money will never be responsible for propping up particular sects’ religious ministries.”

The unconstitutional funding for the two schools has been on hold as a result of the legal challenge. 

The New Jersey Constitution specifically forbids taxpayer funds from going toward the maintenance of a church or ministry, as the organizations argued before the court on April 11, 2016. This ruling sets the first New Jersey precedent regarding which religious institutions qualify as a “ministry.” 

“New Jersey’s Constitution forbids giving state funding to divinity schools, and for very good reason,” said Alex J. Luchenitser, Americans United’s associate legal director. “Tax dollars should go toward projects that benefit all the people of the state, not ones that aid only particular faiths.”

In April 2013, Beth Medrash Govoha and Princeton Theological Seminary stood out on a list the Christie administration released of 176 New Jersey colleges and universities set to receive funds for construction projects through a voter-approved bond sale.  The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the ACLU-NJ, Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of New Jersey, a former Hebrew school teacher, and two other New Jersey taxpayers. 

“We discern no principled distinction between the consumption of public resources that was invalidated under Article I, Paragraph 3 in Resnick and the payment of taxpayer-funded grants to the Yeshiva and the Seminary. The fact that most or many of the students at the Yeshiva and the Seminary do not eventually become ‘ministers,’ rabbis, or other clergy does not cure the constitutional infirmity, just as the fact that the adults and children who received religious instruction in Resnick were laypeople did not alter the Court's analysis. Nor does the fact that the Department's awards to these sectarian schools were part of a larger competitive grant process involving non-sectarian recipients solve the problem. The public school buildings in Resnick were also used by non-religious groups, but that did not eliminate the district's constitutional violation in allowing religious groups to use them on a subsidized basis,” the opinion read.

The complete opinion and filings in the case, captioned ACLU-NJ v. Hendricks, can be read online.

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