The government cannot love a neighbor, and that is why it has failed to solve the problem of poverty. 
Rep. Todd Rokita of Indiana (full post here).
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Quote of the Day: Government and Love of Neighbor
The Connection of Separationism and Radically Limited Government
In rereading a wonderful piece by Professor Michael McConnell about Edmund Burke’s view of the relationship between an established religion and a regime of toleration of religion, I came across this deeply insightful discussion of the close connection of a separationist idea of religion and government (as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson, for example) and the idea that government itself had very limited functions in the first place:
There is a close, but generally unrecognized, connection between the idea of the “Wall of Separation” and the idea of a radically limited government. Once government shakes off its limited role and concerns itself with the general welfare of the people, including their cultural and intellectual lives, it has leapt the “Wall” and entered the traditional sphere of religion. In contrast to many of our Founders, Burke had a more modern conception of the jurisdiction of the state, which did not permit him the easy answer of a “Wall of Separation.” If the government is “a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection,” then it necessarily will be conveying a collective teaching on science, art, virtue, and perfection (whether we label the teaching a “religion” or not). It follows not that an establishment is desirable, but that it is inescapable. Some sort of opinions will necessarily guide the state in its “superintending control over…the publicly propagated doctrines of men.” If the Jeffersonian-Madisonian ideal of the limited state is abandoned as naive or outmoded, then the serious questions become how to protect against arbitrary or tyrannical use of this power and how to respect the legitimate rights of those who disagree with the official orthodoxy.
Michael W. McConnell, Establishment and Toleration in Edmund Burke’s ‘Constitution of Freedom,’ 1995 Supreme Court Review 393, 444-45 (with citations to Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and his Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians).
"Can Markets Make Citizens?"
This paper ("Can Markets Make Citizens? School Vouchers, Political Tolerance, and Civic Engagement", appears in the latest Journal of School Choice and is well worth a read. Here is the abstract:
School voucher programs challenge the traditional role of the public school as the builder of citizens, raising the question of whether private schools can provide a civic education of equal quality. In this study, we use survey data from the Milwaukee voucher program to investigate the relative benefits in civic outcomes of attending a voucher school. We find that voucher students demonstrate modestly higher levels of political tolerance, civic skills, future political participation, and volunteering when compared to public schools students. Further analyses indicate these results may be driven in part by those students attending Catholic and other religious schools.
Coincidence?
I'm not a soccer (or "football") fan, but I thought this was great:
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Excellent review of "Lost Classroom, Lost Community"
Education Next -- an important education-policy journal -- has published this excellent review of Lost Classroom, Lost Community: Catholic Schools' Importance in Urban America, by Nicole Stelle Garnett and Margaret Brinig (buy it here!). Nathan Glazer is the author of the review. Here is a taste:
The areas in which Catholic schools are closing are also areas in which overall population may be declining, black and minority population increasing, and poverty rising. Do these not explain the increase in crime and disorder and the decline of trust? The authors make the ingenious argument that they can detect the distinct influence of the closing of a Catholic school because such events are not related only to the increase of poverty and the growth of minority populations. Which schools in such areas close, they argue on the basis of detailed knowledge of how Catholic schools operate, depends on the commitment of the pastor of the parish. Those more committed to the school and parish will fight harder to enable them to remain open. And the authors argue they can measure commitment by a number of factors: how old the pastor is, how long he has served in the parish, whether he has been ordained in the archdiocese or belongs to a religious order and is subject to its authority, whether there is some irregularity—like a sexual abuse charge—involving the pastor, and whether a temporary administrator heads the parish. . . .
Lyman Johnson on Hobby Lobby: A Landmark Corporate Law Decision
My colleague, Lyman Johnson, has a post today on Business Law Prof titled "Hobby Lobby, a Landmark Corporate Law Decision." Herewith a sample: 
As one who for decades has favored a vision of corporations (and corporate law) as being utterly conducive to serving broad social purposes -- as freely determined, of course, by the appropriate corporate decisionmakers -- and as one who supported Hobby Lobby, I found it odd to see these companies opposed by so many corporate progressives. . . .
To those on the right who favored Hobby Lobby (me) but who also favor the now-discredited position that corporate law requires profit maximizing (not me) take note: you won the battle on religious freedom but to do so you had to suffer a major setback on corporate purpose.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
A response to Kaveny on the Hobby Lobby case
Cathy Kaveny has an essay in Commonweal called "A Minefield" which discusses the Court's recent Hobby Lobby decision. I agree with Cathy that "in a pluralistic society, the religious freedom of one party needs to be balanced against the rights and the legitimate expectations of others." (It seems to me that both RFRA and Dignitatis Humanae say as much.) I also agree with her that RFRA-type accommodation regimes tend to invite a very difficult (and, even after Hobby Lobby, not resolved) question, i.e., how should a court determine whether a claimant's sincerely held religious belief is burdened and whether that burden is, for legal purposes, "substantial"?
In several places, though, I disagree with the essay. . . .
Religious Freedom, Accommodation, and Establishment
I did a short article for the Vanderbilt Law Review's "En Banc" journal, called "Accommodation, Establishment, and Religious Freedom." Here is the link. And, here is the abstract:
This short essay engages the argument that it would violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to exempt an ordinary, nonreligious, profit-seeking business – such as Hobby Lobby – from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive-coverage rules. In response to this argument, it is emphasized that the First Amendment not only permits but invites generous, religion-specific accommodations and exemptions and that the Court’s Smith decision does not teach otherwise. In addition, this essay proposes that laws and policies that promote and protect religious freedom should be seen as having a “secular purpose” and that because religious freedom, like clean air, is an aspect of the public good, it is both appropriate and unremarkable that, sometimes, maintaining the conditions for religious freedom is not cost-free.
Fred Gedicks and Andy Koppelman respond to what they kindly call my "thoughtful and measured" arguments here.
Monday, July 7, 2014
The Pendulum Swings: Substantial Majority Opposes Big-Government Solutions
As I blogged back in April (here), the centuries-old American debate about the right size and proper role of government will carry forward for decades into the future, despite occasional nonsense from pundits that this or that political win for this or that set of politicians means that this or that side of the political spectrum would be forever banished into the political wilderness.
Those of us on the Mirror of Justice who are motivated in our public activities by faith and who share a Catholic understanding of the human person in community vary greatly on our evaluation of the wisdom of and the acceptable extent to central government programs to advance the common good. So too the general American public remains divided and insists on preventing one or the other viewpoint from dominating the political landscape for too long.
When President Obama was first elected in 2008, together with large Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, many believed the stage was set for a new progressive era as conservative views about limited government receded into the past. But, as shown by the 2010 congressional elections and President Obama's thin 51-percent reelection, the charisma of liberty and skepticism about the competence (and moral legitimacy) of government mandates has sent the pendulum swinging hard to the other side yet again. As Marc Theissen writes in today's Washington Post:
"According to a December Gallup poll, the number of people who say that 'big government' is the greatest threat to the country has risen from 55 percent when Obama took office to 72 percent today — the highest that number has ever been in 50 years of polling. For the next quarter century, whenever a liberal politician proposes some new, big-government program, all conservatives will have to say to discredit it is: 'It’s just another Obamacare.'”
Of course, as I suggested earlier, this too shall pass — although the clunky implementation of Obamacare will have lasting implications (for at least a couple of election cycles). Even if Republicans win big this fall (and I'm still dubious that the huge shift of six Senate seats can be accomplished), and even if Republicans should take the White House again(an even bigger "if"), they too will make mistakes and overreach. At some point in the future, the pendulum will sweep back in the other direction.
While the swing of the pendulum will never stop altogether, Catholic public thinkers might be able to escape the back-and-forth by looking for ways to transcend old political divisions and trying to find ways to more "smartly" join governmental policies and public environments with social and religious organizations to enhance human thriving. By doing so, we may not only make the world (or at least our neighborhood) better but also strengthen the case once again for religious freedom and the plurality of initiatives that such freedom brings.
"The Great Accreditation Farce"
In the current Chronicle, U Penn English prof Peter Conn offers a remarkably misguided essay on accreditation. An excerpt:
I want to raise [an] . . . important objection to accreditation as codified and practiced now. By awarding accreditation to religious colleges, the process confers legitimacy on institutions that systematically undermine the most fundamental purposes of higher education.
Skeptical and unfettered inquiry is the hallmark of American teaching and research. However, such inquiry cannot flourish—in many cases, cannot even survive—inside institutions that erect religious tests for truth. The contradiction is obvious.
Citing Wheaton College as an example, Conn notes that its faculty are required to affirm faith statements, and thus Wheaton "makes a mockery of whatever academic and intellectual standards the process of accreditation is supposed to uphold."
Where to begin? Three quick points:
First, as Conn acknowledges, there is a (largely sensible) move to shift accreditation standards from being focused primarily on inputs to being focused more on outputs. Categorically excluding certain institutions because of the commitments they bring to the education process takes higher ed in exactly the wrong direction. The success of Wheaton grads (and grads of many other institutions that require statements of faith) speaks for itself.
Second, as most folks seem to have recognized at least ten years ago, there is a value to institutional pluralism -- even if all we care about is the role of faculty research in the pursuit of truth. To take one of countless examples, would Mark Noll have flourished as a historian at the University of Illinois to the same extent that he flourished at Wheaton (and continues to flourish at Notre Dame)?
Third, many Christian colleges make their commitments explicit; many secular colleges do not. Does weeding out the institutions that are explicit ensure that secular colleges cultivate environments in which totally "unfettered inquiry" can and will proceed? If we throw out a certain category of institutional commitments, have we effectively closed off certain paths of inquiry?
Should religious colleges be automatically entitled to accreditation? Of course not. Neither should secular colleges. The focus for both should be on the fruits of their labors, not on the reasons they labor in the first place.
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