Thread by @mjschwartzman

In light of Espinoza today, it is worth remembering that Lemon v Kurtzman was initially litigated in 1969 on establishment clause *and* equal protection (race discrimination) grounds. Alton Lemon was a named plaintiff, along with the Pennsylvania NAACP, PA ACLU and others. /1

Here is some background on Alton Lemon, a civil rights activist and graduate of Morehouse College, from his 2013 obituary by @adamliptak /2

nytimes.com/2013/05/25/us/…

I mention this in part because both the Court and Justice Alito discuss the history of anti-Catholic bigotry, relying in part on this excellent and important article by John Jeffries and Jim Ryan (J&R), A Political History of the Establishment Clause repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewconten… /2

But there is some irony in the Court (and Alito) relying on J&R, first because they tell a political, not doctrinal, story about how the Court’s establishment clause jurisprudence has changed so dramatically, and second, because in addition to surveying anti-Catholic views ... /3

J&R also explain how white Protestants came to be aligned with Catholics in supporting gov’t funding of private schools. That story is mainly about desegregation and the rise of white Christian academies in the south. /4

In the 1960s, separation of church and state was a civil rights issue in part because demands for state aid were increasingly driven by the interests of white evangelicals opposed to integrating public schools /5

This history is lost in the Espinoza opinions today, which focus on religious animus in the history of separationism. But readers will find a richer and more complicated history in J&R’s work, with many more actors, interests, and motivations. /6

And of course there are other histories that should complicate all this further, but given the Court’s citations to J&R, it’s worth remembering that systemic racism has also played an important, but often overlooked, role in the recent history of separating church and state. /end