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In her remarks to the Smith Foundation, Ms. DeVos, who attended private Christian schools and sent her children to them, took aim at the so-called Blaine Amendments, constitutional provisions in 37 state constitutions that prohibit government aid to religiously affiliated educational institutions. She called the amendments the “last acceptable prejudice.”
The amendments have been used to fight private school vouchers, a cause Ms. DeVos has long championed as a school choice advocate in Michigan and as federal secretary of education.
“These amendments should be assigned to the ash heap of history,” Ms. DeVos said.
Ms. DeVos said there was hope that a recent Supreme Court decision, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia Inc. v. Comer, would overturn the Blaine Amendments. In the June 2017 decision, justices found that the state of Missouri had engaged in unconstitutional religious discrimination when it denied a church-run preschool publicly funded tire scraps for its playground.
Last week, the Department of Education announced that Ms. DeVos will move to rescind or rewrite regulations that exclude religious institutions from receiving federal aid, to adhere to the most recent case law.
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