John Kasich State of the State.JPG

Ohio Gov. John Kasich announced his "Community Connectors" student mentoring plan in his State of the State speech in February. The ACLU of Ohio said this week that a religious requirement in the plan appears to be unconstitutional.

(Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is researching possible legal action over a requirement for schools to have religious partners to be part of Gov. John Kasich's $10 million student mentoring program.

Christine Link, ACLU of Ohio executive director, said she is troubled that the new "Community Connectors" program requires that a "house of worship" or "faith-based" organization join with a business and a school before the school can qualify for grants from the program.

As The Plain Dealer reported last Friday, other non-profit organizations that want to mentor students can participate, but only if a business and a religious group are also in the partnership with the school. But the other non-profits are not eligible if no religious group is included.

In a

to Kasich and State Superintendent Richard Ross, ACLU officials say they are "troubled" that the state has "injected religious criteria" into the program and that the requirement may be unconstitutional. Link said the government and schools can have religious groups work with students, just with strong limits, but not give them preferences or include them at the exclusion of other groups.

"The government is not supposed to prefer religion over non religion," said Link.

Freda Levenson, the legal director for the ACLU of Ohio, said in a press release Wednesday that, "Conditioning a public school's receipt of government funds on collaboration with a religious organization raises serious constitutional concerns. Although improving educational outcomes within our communities is an important goal, it cannot be achieved by unconstitutional means."

Link noted that the ACLU has not asked – yet – that the requirement be dropped or threatened legal action. She said ACLU lawyers want to research the rules and all discussion between the governor, his staff, Ross and ODE before going further.

In the letter to Ross and Kasich, the ACLU made a public records request for emails, letters, promotional materials and other documents related to the requirement. ODE spokesman John Charlton said this week that the requirement was approved by Ross after discussions with ODE staff, Kasich's staff and advisors for the program.

Asked for a response to the ACLU's request, Charlton and Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols declined. Each said they do not discuss potential lawsuits.