West Virginia cannot give a taxpayer-funded $5 million grant to an Ohio-based academic institution affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, a court has ruled.
Kanawha Circuit Judge Richard Lindsay ruled against the West Virginia Water Development Authority (WDA) in a lawsuit brought by the American Humanist Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.
In a ruling issued from the bench last week, Lindsay concluded that the WDA violated the state constitution when it issued a grant to the College of Saint Joseph the Worker.
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AHA Legal Director Amitai Heller issued a statement last week celebrating the decision, saying he was “encouraged that the court held the line on this unconstitutional appropriation of funds.”
“The separation of church and state is a non-negotiable, and the West Virginia Water Development Authority had no business granting public infrastructure dollars to fund religious education and advocacy,” stated Heller.
“Our members saw this blatant violation of church-state separation happening in their community and in concert with the ACLU of West Virginia, we acted.”
Last October, the state water authority approved a grant for the Steubenville-based College of Saint Joseph the Worker to help establish a construction and real estate company headquartered in Weirton, as well as a new satellite campus in the Kanawha Valley.
In response to the news, the ACLU and the AHA sued the WDA, arguing that the grant violated the separation of church and state provision of the West Virginia Constitution.
According to the state constitution, “the Legislature shall not prescribe any religious test whatever, or confer any peculiar privileges or advantages on any sect or denomination, or pass any law requiring or authorizing any religious society, or the people of any district within this state, to levy on themselves, or others, any tax for the erection or repair of any house for public worship, or for the support of any church or ministry, but it shall be left free for every person to select his religious instructor, and to make for his support, such private contracts as he shall please.”
For their part, state officials have defended the decision to provide Economic Enhancement Grant Fund money to the Catholic college, claiming that the purposes were secular in nature.
According to an agreement between WDA Executive Director Marie Prezioso and College President Michael Sullivan quoted by The Intelligencer, the proposed project consisted of “the acquisition, construction and equipping of multiple education facilities for the in-class and on-site training of the five major construction trades of HVAC, carpentry, masonry, electrical and plumbing (including areas for tools and equipment storage), materials for training, and all necessary appurtenances thereto.”
