N.J. court: State funding of yeshiva, seminary unlawful
New Jersey higher-education grants totaling about $11 million to Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva and Princeton Theology Seminary are unconstitutional, a panel of state appellate judges ruled Thursday.
New Jersey higher-education grants totaling about $11 million to Beth Medrash Govoha yeshiva and Princeton Theology Seminary are unconstitutional, a panel of state appellate judges ruled Thursday.
The American Civil Liberties Union led a lawsuit filed in June 2013 against Rochelle Hendricks, the state secretary of higher education, and Andrew P. Sidamon-Eristoff, then the state treasurer.
The ACLU says the grants of $10.6 million to the yeshiva and $645,000 to the seminary were unconstitutional because of the schools' religious nature.
The grants were part of a $1.3 billion pot the state put together, including a $750 million bond approved by voters in November 2012, to support capital work - primarily construction, renovation, and infrastructure improvements - at colleges and universities in the state.
Lawmakers and state officials touted the funding, which was awarded to 176 projects at 46 schools, as the first state-backed money for higher-education construction in 25 years.
But the ACLU and others challenged the grants to the yeshiva and the seminary.
Beth Medrash Govoha, in Lakewood, Ocean County, was approved for construction of a new library and research center as well as renovations to create 14 classrooms, a reference library, computer room, and other academic and office spaces.
Princeton Theological Seminary, in Princeton, Mercer County, was approved for infrastructure improvements to its Luce Library, installation of on-site and distance-training technology in a training room, and upgrades to a conference room to improve online education.
The yeshiva offers degree programs in talmudic studies. The seminary offers degrees in subjects such as divinity, Christian education, and theology, the court said.
"We are disappointed with today's ruling," Moshe Gleiberman, Beth Medrash Govoha's vice president of administration, wrote in a statement.
The decision, he said, "denies BMG's students critically needed investment in academic facilities," and the yeshiva "is confident that the grants will be reinstated by the Supreme Court."
It is unclear whether the case will go further. A spokesman for the secretary of higher education referred comment to the state Attorney General's Office, where a spokesman declined to comment.
Princeton Theological Seminary also declined to comment.
Neither the yeshiva nor the seminary was named in the suit. While the suit was being heard, the state withheld the funding to the schools. (Funding to other colleges and universities was unaffected, and several projects have been completed or are underway at the other schools.)
In their decision, released Thursday, appellate judges Jack M. Sabatino, Allison E. Accurso, and Karen L. Suter relied on a state Supreme Court opinion in Resnick v. East Brunswick Township Board of Education. In the 1978 case, the court held that it was improper for the public school district to allow a religious group below-cost use of its premises.
As in that case, the three-judge panel examined a clause in Article I, Paragraph 3, of the state constitution: ". . . nor shall any person be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates for building or repairing any church or churches, place or places of worship, or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry."
The ACLU and state presented differing readings of the history of that clause; the judges acknowledged in their decision that "the parties have each asserted substantial competing interpretations" and that the clause has a "mixed constitutional history."
Ultimately, the judges said, they "do not resolve this historical dispute" but used the Resnick decision to find that the grants must be invalidated.
"Here, unlike other broad-based liberal arts colleges that received grants, both the yeshiva and the seminary are sectarian institutions," the panel wrote.
The ruling, it said, did not affect grants to "different religiously affiliated institutions of higher education which have a broader nonsectarian scope." By way of example, the judges cited some others that received grants, including Seton Hall University and St. Peter's University.
The state has begun taking applications for a second round of capital funding, using leftover and returned funds from the $1.3 billion pot. Those applications are still being reviewed and the approved grants have not yet been announced.
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