BENNINGTON — Herbert Ogden, a Vermont lawyer and school board member, will explore the public funding of religious schools in Vermont. Ogden will speak at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 12, at the Unitarian Universalist Meetinghouse, 108 School St., Bennington. The meeting is free and open to the public and is sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.
Ogden will explore how U.S. Supreme Court decisions have local consequences. In a June 2022 decision, Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court held that if states pay tuition to nonpublic schools, they must do so regardless of whether the schools use it for religious instruction. This is the latest in a trio of decisions that have increasingly involved the state in funding religion. Other decisions have used the “ministerial exception” to remove anti-discrimination protection from teachers at religious schools.
Ogden taught high school German and other subjects for 10 years before going to law school, then practiced law in Vermont for 35 years. He has served on various school boards for the last 16 years and was president of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Rutland from 2001 to 2004 and from 2016 to 2020.
