Illustration by Walker Evans.

Governor John Kasich’s school mentorship program is now being investigated by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. The Governor’s “Community Connectors” program contains an unexpected religious requirement, mandating that in order to receive state funding, participants in the program must partner with a faith organization or house of worship.

The Ohio Department of Education has started accepting applications for the Community Connectors program, which is funded by $10 million in annual state lottery money. Kasich announced the initiative during his 2014 State of the State Address, and mentioned faith-based groups as part of the program, in addition to business leaders and community organizations.

The fact that partnership with a faith-based group would be required is a recent development and came as a surprise to many who believe such a mandate violates the separation of church and state dictated by the First Amendment.

“Not only does this clearly interfere with the religious freedom of Ohio families, it places an unconstitutional burden on our public schools and erects another roadblock for at-risk students to access educational opportunities,” said Christine Link, Ohio ACLU executive director, in a press release issued Wednesday.

Link promised that a full inquiry into the program would be conduced by the Ohio ACLU and the ACLU Program on Religious Freedom and Belief.

“The First Amendment of the Constitution provides very strong protection against the government imposing religion upon children in public schools,” said Heather Weaver of the Program on Religious Freedom and Belief in the ACLU’s press release. “This new program appears to disregard those protections and injects religion into our classrooms.”

On Wednesday, the ACLU sent a letter to Kasich and Department of Education Superintendent Richard Ross saying that the religious requirement included in Community Connectors, “raises serious questions about the constitutionality of the mentoring program.”

“Relationships with community groups can provide an important source of support for public schools,” reads the letter. “When those relationships involve partnering with churches or faith-based organizations, however, schools must proceed with great caution.”

Under Ohio’s open records law, the ACLU’s letter formally requests a series of documents from the Department of Education, the Community Connectors Advisory Panel and Governor Kasich’s office that might be useful in their inquiry.

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