NPR

Playground Case Could Breach Barrier Between Tax Coffers, Religious Schools

The Supreme Court hears arguments today on whether Missouri should provide a grant to a church preschool, or if that violates the state's constitution. The state's new governor has abandoned the rule.
Children play on a swing set at the Trinity Lutheran Child Learning Center playground in Columbia, Mo.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments Wednesday in a Missouri case with the potential to open grant programs to parochial schools.

Monday's showdown pitting school choice and religious liberty advocates against taxpayer groups and civil libertarians has been long in coming. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Trinity Lutheran Church v. Pauley Pauley being the director of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources at the time — in January 2016.

A month later, , leaving an eight-justice court that was deeply divided on questions concerning the separation of church and state. For nearly a year and a half, the justices punted, declining to hear oral arguments in the case until the court

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