School Bus Prediction
School Bus Prediction
Part of the Catholic Studies Commons
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl Recommended Citation
-
POSTSCRIPTS
School Bus Prediction
In the Spring, 1959 issue of THE
CATHOLIC LAWYER, George E. Reed, associate
director of the legal department of the
National Catholic Welfare Conference,
pointed out that action by state legislatures
affords the best way to insure bus
transportation for parochial school children.
In that article,' Mr. Reed discussed the
case of Squires v. City of Augusta, then
pending on appeal to the Supreme Court
of Maine. The Superior Court had upheld
the validity of a city ordinance of Augusta
granting bus transportation to non-public
school children, but at the time of the
article, Mr. Reed anticipated the decision
of May 26, which finally held that the city
ordinance was not valid without enabling
legislation by state lawmakers. 2
Mr. Reed wrote that eighteen states have
such legislation: Alaska, California,
Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan,
Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode
Island, and West Virginia. Of these, he
cites Kentucky's law as a model for those
states intending to draft legislation to
provide transportation for all state pupils
1 Reed, The School Bus Challenge, 5 CATHOLIC
LAWYER 99, 101 (Spring 1959).
without discrimination. A possible
weakness to such legislation is that the use of
money appropriated for school purposes
may be limited by statute to the
maintenance and support of public schools
solely. The Kentucky Legislature avoids this
problem by providing that the money
appropriated pursuant to such legislation shall
be deposited in and disbursed from a
general fund rather than from a school fund. 3
In his article, Mr. Reed rebutted the
argument that such legislation violates the
doctrine of the separation of Church and
State by a re-analysis of Everson v. Board
of Educ.4 In that case the United States
Supreme Court held that the First
Amendment is not violated by providing
transportation for both parochial and public school
pupils alike. The Court drew an analogy
between such legislation and the policeman
at a busy intersection who protects children
5
going to and from parochial school..
The recent Maine decision emphasizes
and confirms Mr. Reed's conclusion that
there must be a state law framed within the
bounds of the state constitution in order
to grant validity to a city ordinance or a
school board ruling granting rides to all
school children.
3 Reed, supra note 1 at 102-03.
4 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947).
5 Reed, supra note 1 at 100. (...truncated)