The Oklahoma State Superintendent—the highest education authority in the state—mandated that public schools incorporate the Bible into lesson plans. While there are good reasons to oppose it, the edict challenges a Supreme Court decision that should be overturned: School District of Abington Township v. Schempp.
Abington v. Schempp ruled that mandatory Bible readings and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in public schools violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This decision is not consistent with the principle of private property.
The Establishment Clause governs the use of “public” resources, prohibiting their use in establishing or favoring any religion or denomination. This clause falls into error because it mistakenly affirms the existence of public property.
All so-called public resources are private resources stolen from taxpayers or landowners. Likewise, the taxpayers and landowners are the legitimate owners of the resources and therefore should possess the right to direct them unregulated. Bureaucrats currently in possession of stolen resources have an obligation to either return the resources to those who have legitimate claims to them.
If it is not possible to return the resources, then the bureaucrats must dispose of the resources in such a way that is consistent with the will of the legitimate owners. And this may include directing the resources to explicitly religious ends—effectively violating the Establishment Clause. An implication of this is that the Establishment Cause is an unjust impediment on private property owners. All of this applies to public schools.
A public school is not really public. The enterprise is built on the foundation of stolen resources—taxes. Consequently, the public school should be directed by those who legitimately own it—the taxpayer.
Of course, this introduces practical concerns. What should be done when taxpayers disagree with one another on how to run public schools? Some propose that public property should be run like a joint-stock company. Each taxpayer receives a vote in proportion to the share of taxes they pay. Decisions on how the school is administered are determined by a vote according to a collective decision-making rule, and shares in decision-making authority can be sold if the shareholder does not approve of the outcomes of the decision-making process.
There are many other proposed privatization schemes, but practical problems do not undermine the principle. “Public” property is expropriated property and should be treated as such. The Establishment Clause is merely a criminal imposition on taxpayers that prevents them from disposing of their property according to their subjective preferences.
Of course, religious mandates in schools are not always just. In the case of Oklahoma, mandates do not align with the demonstrated preferences of the taxpayers. Oklahoma is a state which encompasses a wide variety of interests and religious preferences. It is incorrect to assume that the state government can impose such a mandate without violating the rights of taxpayers. Mandates like this are better administered by local school boards so that it serves smaller and less diverse interests, so that it is less likely that rules governing public property diverge from taxpayer interests.
About 61% of Oklahoma residents are Protestant. What about the other religious perspectives? What about the diversity within Protestantism? A number of parents have already expressed their disapproval with this mandate. This is only a minor indicator of the level of disagreement with this edict at the state level, affirming the fact that the rights of many Oklahomans are violated by this edict.
Additionally, the mandate potentially increases the scope of government extractions from taxpayers. Initially, only two expensive, Donald Trump-endorsed Bibles (Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA Bible” and the “We the People Bible”) fit the specifications, potentially costing taxpayers $3 million. Luckily, the requirements were loosened. Was the Oklahoma State Superintendent attempting to benefit Trump financially? That’s unclear, but it’s a possibility that should not be discounted. Regardless of the size of the additional spending this mandate generates, the increased burden on taxpayers is evident.
Nevertheless, none of the concerns specific to Oklahoma change a thing about the preceding analysis of the Abington decision. It was an unjust ruling because it made religious establishment via “public” resources unlawful in general.
As has been shown above, the Establishment Clause should not be a general principle. Whether a particular religion or denomination should be established or not should be the judgment of individual school districts. Of course, the conflict over what religion should be established will not be settled at the local level. Conflict will continue. The best solution is to privatize education entirely—taking education entirely out of the public domain. This would eliminate the conflict of interests that is rife in the public domain while also making education more reflective of the voluntary preferences of taxpayers.
While the Oklahoma mandate has its problems, it challenges an unjust ruling. Essentially, the mandate is good in as far as it challenges Abington, and if libertarians are to criticize it, they must limit their criticism to challenging its consistency with the preferences of the relevant taxpayers.
