In Bishop of Charleston v. Adams, (D SC, Feb. 10, 2022), a South Carolina federal district court rejected federal Constitutional free exercise and equal protection challenges to Art. XI, Sec. 4 of the South Carolina Constitution which bars the use of public funds to directly benefit religious or other private educational institutions. The court held that plaintiffs failed to prove that the provision was motivated by either religious or racial discriminatory intent, saying in part:
[A]ccording to Plaintiffs, the 1895 provision was a so-called “Blaine Amendment” motivated by anti-Catholic animus....
Plaintiffs’ own expert, conceded that the national Blaine Amendment movement was not a significant factor in South Carolina.... The similarity in language between South Carolina’s 1895 provision and Blaine Amendments in other States is not enough to make up for Plaintiffs’ failure to demonstrate the existence of pervasive anti-Catholic animus in South Carolina, much less Plaintiffs’ failure to establish any corresponding discriminatory intent.....
Even assuming the 1895 provision was connected in some way to racial or religious prejudice, Plaintiffs’ claim still cannot succeed. The original 1895 provision no longer governs. Instead, the relevant provision was incorporated into the South Carolina Constitution by a vote of the people in 1972....
Plaintiffs mainly argue that racial and religious prejudice from the 1895 provision tainted Section 4, while also arguing that “[t]he ‘historical backdrop’ of the 1972 Amendment really started in 1619, when the first slaves came to America’s shores.”...
But Plaintiffs’ reliance on these other racist or anti-religious views or policies is unavailing because Plaintiffs do not connect them with Section 4’s adoption.
