This year, Iowa gave $107 million in public money to religious schools. By 2026, over a third of a billion dollars will flow annually from our state treasury to religious schools. These payments violate the Iowa Constitution compulsion guarantee: “nor shall any person be compelled to … pay … taxes … for … the maintenance of any minister, or ministry.” Religious schools are ministries, and their teachers are ministers, according to the Iowa Supreme Court, the schools themselves, and the United States Supreme Court.

The 1918 Iowa Supreme Court case Knowlton v. Baumhover involved the public school at Maple River in Carroll County. The school board sold the public-school building and rented space in a building owned by “Jos. Kuemper.” It hired “Miss Martin” to teach. It was a sham. “Jos. Kuemper” was Father Joseph Kuemper, the local parish priest. The rented space was in the St. Francis Catholic School. And the teacher, “Miss Martin,” was Sister Estella of the Sisters of Charity. Thereafter, the Maple River “public” school was taught by nuns in clerical garb, in classrooms adorned with crucifixes and other religious icons. The students were taught the Catholic catechism and participated in religious services.

These changes, the Court found, were “a practical elimination of the public school as such and a transfer of its name and its revenues to … the parochial school.” In response, the court declared that parents have no right to ask the state to “expend money acquired by public taxation in training his children religiously,” and that churches are “denied the right to use … public funds for the advancement of religious or sectarian teaching.” The court ruled the compulsion guarantee “forbids … all taxation for ecclesiastical support,” and said that a religious school “could not lawfully be supported or aided by public funds even in the form of payment for tuition given to the children.”

As of 2023, there were 183 accredited private schools in Iowa. Of these, 176 were religious, accounting for over 98% of the private school enrollment. Many describe themselves as ministries, their teachers as ministers. For example, Kuemper Catholic refers to “the ministry of Catholic education,” Sully Christian speaks of “this important ministry,” and Hillcrest Academy “the ministry of Christian education.”

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The 2020 United States Supreme Court case Our Lady of Guadalupe School ruled that teachers in religious schools are ministers. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, stated: “What matters, at bottom, is what an employee does.” He recognized “that educating young people in their faith, inculcating its teachings, and training them to live their faith are responsibilities that lie at the very core of the mission of a private religious school.” The Court found the term “minister” includes “any employee who serves as a teacher of its faith.”

All of Iowa’s religious schools teach religion. Indeed, they describe themselves as being pervasively religious. For example, Newton Christian Day School describes its program as “An education submerged in the Word of God.” Xavier Catholic Schools in Cedar Rapids speaks of “Catholicity interwoven into the fabric of everything we do …” Virtually all of Iowa’s religious schools make equivalent statements.

Over a century ago, our Supreme Court held it violated the compulsion guarantee of the Iowa Constitution to give public funds to the St. Francis Catholic School in Maple River. Today, the state gives millions of dollars of public funds to religious schools. The compulsion guarantee hasn’t changed since 1918. How can it have been unconstitutional to fund the St. Francis School in 1918 and constitutional to fund religious schools today? The answer is simple, it can’t. Giving public funds to religious schools violates the Iowa Constitution. It should end.

Allan Vestal is Dwight D. Opperman Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at Drake University Law School. Contact: allan.vestal@drake.edu.  This essay is adapted from a 2024 analysis published as “Tax-Funded Education Savings Account Payments to Religious Schools Violate State Constitution Compulsion Guarantees: The Iowa Example,” found at 32 William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal 771.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa’s payments to religious schools are unconstitutional