State Funding of Religious Programs

A Vermont lawyer and school board member will explore the funding of religious schools in Vermont. Herbert Ogden will speak on Sunday, Feb. 12, at 2 p.m. The meeting, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship and will be held at the UU Meetinghouse, 108 School St., Bennington.

Ogden will explore how U. S. Supreme Court decisions have local consequences.  In a June 2022 decision, Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court held that, if states pay tuition to nonpublic schools, they must do so regardless of whether the schools use it for religious instruction.  This is the latest in a trio of decisions that have increasingly involved state in funding religion.  Other decisions have used the “ministerial exception” to remove antidiscrimination protection from teachers at religious schools. 

Herbert Ogden, our speaker, taught high school German and other subjects for ten years before going to law school, then practiced law in Vermont for 35 years.  He has served on various school boards for the last sixteen years and was President of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rutland from 2001 to 2004 and 2016 to 2020.