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Supreme Court Considers Eroding the Separation of Church and State in Public Schools
May 02, 2025
WASHINGTON–After the state of Oklahoma contested the right of a Catholic organization to get state funding for a charter school, the Supreme Court is weighing whether the separation of church and state required by the Constitution justifies Oklahoma’s decision to keep charter schools secular.
The court heard arguments on Wednesday in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, and its decision, expected in late June, could open the gates that separate the secular American education system from religion.
If the Court rules in favor of the Catholic school in Oklahoma, taxpayer dollars set aside for public schools could begin to flow toward religious schools across the country as well. That would reduce the resources and funding for public education. Currently, six of the nine justices are Catholic while less than 20 % of U.S. citizens practice Catholicism.
“The hallmark of public education is that taxpayers are paying for it, not private donations. The government's doing this,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. “Charter schools are using only government funds.”
In January 2023, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa contracted with a statewide charter school board to create the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The school never began its classes as the State Attorney General, Gentner Drummond, sued the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board.
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He argued that they violated the state and U.S. Constitution because it forbids the use of public school funding for religious purposes. The Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed with Drummond that charter schools, as public entities, are prohibited from using public funds for religious education.
“This case is ultimately about safeguarding religious liberty. Religious liberty means every citizen is free to worship as he or she sees fit. It does not mean the government should back religious indoctrination,” Drummond said in a press release from April 30. “The justices were clearly engaged. Their questions were robust and meaningful.”
In the wake of the state Supreme Court’s decision, the school board and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. They said charter schools are private entities participating in a state program and that preventing religious charter schools from accessing public funds is discrimination based on religion.
“The challenge here is to the facial religious discrimination that says: If you have any sectarian program, you can't be a part of the program,” Campbell said.
The state of Oklahoma’s lawyer stated that the charter school did not experience discrimination, but rather sought privileges not afforded to public entities.
In fact, Gregory Garre, Oklahoma’s lawyer, said that St. Isidore’s Catholic school policies would discriminate against non-Catholic students and faculty.
“They seek a special status: the right to establish a religious charter school plus an exemption from the nondiscrimination requirements that apply to every other charter school and that distinguish public schools from private schools,” Garre said during opening arguments.
The Archdiocese of Oklahoma issued a press release following the oral arguments, emphasizing that religious liberties were at stake.
“We are grateful that the U.S. Supreme Court heard our case and now entrust it to their wisdom,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley & Bishop David A. Konderla of Oklahoma said in a press release. “Of course, we pray and hope for a decision that stands with religious liberty and the rights of Oklahoma families to make their own decisions in selecting the best educational options for their children.”
Constitutional Litigation Fellow Luke Anderson with Americans United for Separation of Church and State said a ruling for St. Isidore would allow public funding to be funneled toward religious schools. Anderson is involved in Americans United's separate case in Oklahoma's state court againstSt. Isidore on similar grounds.
“What has always been at the core of public education is students learning together across differences, students of varying backgrounds together in one classroom, and this case today, seeks to fracture that system, that long-standing system of public education that is open to all,” Anderson said.
Anderson said the United States’ founding fathers emphasized the separation of church and state because of religious persecution by the Church of England and its influence in British government.
“Without [seperation], we end up in a place where either you have multiple religions competing for the government's legitimacy,” Anderson said. “Or you have the government picking a favorite, and then you have religious control.”
He also added that if the Supreme Court ruled in favor of St. Isidore, many public charter schools would lose money set aside for secular education.
“That would mean diverting funds away from traditional public schools, and indeed, also diverting funds away from charter schools that are free and open to all, which is the core of what it means to be a public school — your free education that is open to all,” Anderson said.
Atmika Iyer is a graduate student in Northwestern Medill’s Politics, Policy, and Foreign Affairs reporting program. Atmika is a journalism intern with the Fulcrum.
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Late-Night Comedy: How Satire Became America’s Most Trusted News Source
May 02, 2025
A close friend of mine recently confessed to having stopped watching cable news altogether because it was causing him and his wife anxiety and dread. They began watching Jimmy Kimmel instead, saying the nightly news felt like "psychological warfare" on their mental state. "We want to know what's going on but can't handle the relentless doom and gloom every night," he told me.
Jimmy Kimmel, host of ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live, seems to understand this shift. "A year ago, I would've said I'm hoping to show people who aren't paying attention to the news what's actually going on," he told Rolling Stone last month in an interview. "Now I see myself more as a place to scream."
This isn't surprising. For almost a decade now, the relationship between audiences and late-night hosts has changed profoundly. Viewers are tuning out cable news and seeking clarity, humor, and relief from late-night comedians like Stephen Colbert and Greg Gutfeld and the cold opens on SNL. On Bluesky, the buzzy new social platform for those fleeing Elon Musk's X, one user wrote, "It's ironic that I use satire shows as more reliable sources than the US mainstream media." For better or worse, this phenomenon has become a new form of journalism.
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How We Got Here
We didn't always turn to comedians for the headlines. For decades, late-night hosts Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, and even David Letterman at his most biting, still centered on celebrity interviews and innocuous zingers. The turning point came after 9/11 when Jon Stewart's emotional monologue on The Daily Show demonstrated that comedy could process national grief.
Following Trump's election in 2016, traditional news became more combative and chaotic. The nightly barrage of outrage left viewers emotionally exhausted. Therapists coined it: "Trump Anxiety Disorder." A recent Axios report found that the chaos surrounding Trump and the 2020 election contributed to a 10% rise in major health issues, including cancer and heart attacks.
In this increasingly tense political climate, liberal audiences found validation through shows like HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Real Time with Bill Maher, and NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers' segment "A Closer Look". These programs offer viewers not just a recap of the news but a way to process it, laugh through it, and bear it. They tackle the most important stories of the day from the tariff wars, the Kilmar Abrego Garcia deportation case, and a potential Trump third term, all blurring the lines of comedy and journalism.
The Numbers Tell the Story
The popularity of this approach is evident in the ratings. Shows from Colbert, Kimmel, and Gutfeld often outperform traditional cable news in their respective timeframes. For instance, on April 17, Gutfeld! captured 3,177,000 viewers at 10 p.m., significantly outperforming CNN's Abby Phillip (527,000 viewers) and MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell (1,643,000 viewers) in the same slot. This performance has established Gutfeld as the dominant voice in late-night ratings.
For conservative viewers, long feeling alienated by mainstream comedy, the rise of Greg Gutfeld—the former Fox News host turned late-night comedian—and his late-night show Gutfeld! wasn't about offering traditional late-night laughs, it was about providing conservative viewers a late-night space where their frustrations were acknowledged with humor, not shame. His success highlights how late-night comedy has evolved into ideological echo chambers that reinforce our worldviews, signaling a profound shift in how we consume political information today.
The Trade-Off
Yet, while comedians offer us a news style that relieves the stress of traditional reporting, it's important to remember they are not journalists. John Oliver, host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, describes his broadcast bluntly: "It's not journalism. It's comedy first, comedy second." It's true that their job is to entertain first, but it's also clear they do a kind of journalism that engages and connects with us in ways traditional news no longer can. The balance we strike is revealing: we choose comfort over journalistic credibility.
Conclusion: Emotional Survival Over News Accuracy
Mainstream news has stopped working for many Americans. That's why late-night comedy, for all its irreverence and partisan leanings, is doing what we once expected journalism to do: tell the truth, make it understandable, and offer us a sense of understanding and comfort.
Meanwhile, with news channels pushing viewers into opposing camps, comedians have become one of the few places where people still gather, night after night, for some much-needed catharsis. But whether you agree with their politics or not, they have become the voices Americans turn to when the world stops making sense. They remind us that we're not crazy, and in a country where the truth can sound like a joke, the last laugh belongs to those who can still help us make sense of it all.
Jack Rico is an entertainment journalist, TV host, and media pundit with over two decades of experience covering Latinos in media and entertainment. He was recently featured on ABC News' primetime special Latinos in Hollywood and is the co-host of the Webby-nominated podcast Brown & Black.
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The Real Monster: Hunger in America’s Schools
May 02, 2025
Boo wasn’t afraid of monsters. In Monster, Inc., a popular Disney animated film, the wide-eyed, giggling little girl toddled fearlessly through a world of towering, furry creatures—completely unfazed by their fangs, claws, or booming voices. The only thing that scared her was Randall, the lurking, slithering villain who threatened her safety.
I once met a little girl just like Boo. She was about three years old, her hair tied up in tiny ponytails, her eyes filled with curiosity. At a food site I visited during my evaluation of the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), she struggled to climb onto the picnic bench, her small hands gripping the edge as she hoisted herself up. When she finally settled, she shared something no child should ever have to say: “When I stay with my dad, we don’t always eat lunch.”
Unlike Boo, the monsters in her world weren’t make-believe. Her Randall wasn’t a shadowy figure hiding in a closet—it was food insecurity and hunger. And unlike the happy ending of a Disney film, where heroes swoop in to save the day, the story for children like her is being rewritten in the worst way.
With the recent policy decision to remove $1 billion in USDA funding that helps supply food banks and school meal programs, the safety net that once protected children from hunger is unraveling. The boogeyman of food insecurity is creeping closer, not just in the shadows but in classrooms, cafeterias, and homes where empty stomachs are becoming more common. As someone who led the first-ever evaluation of Wisconsin’s SFSP, I know firsthand how vital these programs are. I trained both undergraduate students and high schoolers in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) methods to help examine the barriers students and families faced in accessing food. What we found was clear: these meal programs were a lifeline—one that was already stretched too thin.
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The decision to cut funding for food banks and school meals is more than a budgetary shift—it is a fundamental abdication of our collective responsibility to care for one of our most valuable populations: children. This is not just about dollars and cents; it is about whether we, as a society, believe that no child should go hungry.
There is a unique cruelty in a government that cuts funding for food banks and schools, depriving the nation’s most vulnerable—especially children—of essential support. It has long been recognized that certain groups, such as children and the elderly, require special protections. Yet, this government has crossed a moral line, betraying the fundamental social covenant to care for those in greatest need.
Ensuring that children have access to food in school is not just a practical necessity—it is an ethical obligation. Access to food is a fundamental human right. Denying children food in school violates their right to adequate nutrition and overall well-being. We know from science that hungry children struggle to concentrate, retain information, and perform academically. If some students cannot access food, their learning experience is inherently unequal.
Moreover, investing in child nutrition reduces future social costs related to healthcare, crime, and economic disparity. Ethically, society has a responsibility to prevent harm and promote well-being. The USDA’s decision to cut funding will not only hurt children today but will have devastating long-term effects on education, health, and economic stability.
This crisis calls for action from all of us. But how can we make a difference? We can push back against harmful cuts by raising awareness through sharing research, facts, and personal stories on social media to highlight their impact. Mobilizing at town halls and community gatherings will help us discuss how these cuts affect schools and families. We should engage with organizations like faith-based groups, nonprofits, and food pantries to speak out and advocate for change. Additionally, we must demand policy changes by urging local representatives to speak up and contacting state and federal policymakers with specific complaints and personal stories. Joining or forming coalitions can apply pressure on decision-makers to push for change, while volunteering at food banks or school meal programs can help address gaps caused by funding cuts. Fundraising for local efforts to provide meals to families in need and collaborating with businesses to create food donation programs can also make a difference. Holding leaders accountable by amplifying their positions on food security and supporting those advocating for robust social safety nets is crucial. Finally, encouraging voter participation and tracking leaders' voting records on food insecurity issues will help ensure lasting change. Together, we can make a difference.
In Monsters, Inc., laughter had the power to change the world. In our world, it’s action that makes the difference. These children don’t need magic or make-believe heroes—they need real people who will stand up, speak out, and demand that no child goes hungry. Because this time, the monster is real. And the only way to defeat it is by coming together.
In the world of Monstropolis, monsters once stole screams from children to generate energy. But when they discovered that laughter and happiness were far more powerful than fear, everything changed. We want children to experience joy and happiness, not live in fear and uncertainty. Let’s make that a reality.
Dr. Anthony Hernandez, a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison (UW-Madison), received a research award from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation for his study on leadership in higher education. He has been recognized with four teaching awards at UW-Madison. He led the evaluation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) in Dane County, Wisconsin for two years.
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Congress Bill Spotlight: Suspending Pennies and Nickels for 10 Years
May 02, 2025
The Fulcrum introduces Congress Bill Spotlight, a weekly report by Jesse Rifkin, focusing on the noteworthy legislation of the thousands introduced in Congress. Rifkin has written about Congress for years, and now he's dissecting the most interesting bills you need to know about but that often don't get the right news coverage.
Trump recently discontinued production of the one-cent coin. What about the five-cent coin too?
What the bill does
A new bill in Congress would suspend production of both the penny and nickel for 10 years. The bill also contains a provision clarifying that all existing pennies and nickels ever produced would continue to remain as legally usable money.
It was introduced on February 12 by Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ1). The bill does not appear to have an official title.
Context
In fiscal year 2024, each penny cost 3.7 cents to produce, more than triple its face value. So on February 9, President Donald Trump announced that he was suspending the production of the penny for an indefinite period of time. (Again, existing pennies can still be used.)
“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents. This is so wasteful!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies. Let's rip the waste out of our great nation's budget, even if it's a penny at a time.”
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Even some congressional Democrats supported the move. Rep. Schweikert introduced his bill three days later.
However, some worry that suspending only the penny may inadvertently increase government losses on coin production, by deepening reliance on nickels. Nickels cost 13.8 cents each, so the government actually loses far more on each nickel than on each penny: about 8.8 cents versus 2.7 cents.
What supporters say
Supporters argue in part by citing history. The U.S. last discontinued a coin’s production due to low value with the half-penny or “haypenny” in 1857. However, adjusted for inflation, it was worth more than 17 cents today – the financial equivalent of discontinuing the penny, nickel, and dime due to low values.
Supporters now argue that we should discontinue the penny and nickel but keep producing the dime and quarter because those two actually earn money. Each dime currently costs 5.8 cents, while each quarter costs 14.7 cents – both well below their face value.
Treasury Secretary William E. Simon even advocated suspending the penny back in 1976.
Noting “the diminishing utility of the one-cent denomination in commerce,” Simon wrote, “the United States government is rapidly approaching a decision point concerning continuance of the one-cent coin.” He argued for doing so in the 1970s or 1980s: “Elimination of the cent at some later date would be a much more drastic action than elimination now.”
What opponents say
Opponents counter that the bill is self-serving.
Rep. Schweikert represents Arizona, which produces about 70% of U.S. copper. Only the penny’s razor-thin outer coating is made of copper, but the actual coin is 97.5% zinc versus only 2.5% copper. Vice versa, despite literally being named a “nickel,” the five-cent coin is only 25% nickel versus 75% copper.
In other words, switching from pennies to nickels would require considerably more copper production – primarily benefiting Arizona. Little surprise that Arizona politicians have historically ranked among the biggest proponents of ending the penny in years past.
In 2006, then-Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ8) introduced the COIN (Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation) Act. In 2017, then-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) introduced the similarly-named COINS (Currency Optimization, Innovation, and National Savings) Act. Neither received a vote.
Odds of passage
The new bill has not yet attracted any cosponsors, not even any Republicans. While lead sponsor Rep. Schweikert is a Republican, the bill isn’t particularly partisan in substance.
It awaits a potential vote in the House Financial Services Committee, controlled by Republicans. No Senate companion version appears to have been introduced yet.
Back in 2011, Rep. Schweikert also introduced a bill to replace the production of dollar bills with dollar coins within four years. (Currently, dollars are produced as both bills and coins.) The legislation never received a vote.
Jesse Rifkin is a freelance journalist with the Fulcrum. Don’t miss his weekly report, Congress Bill Spotlight, every Friday on the Fulcrum. Rifkin’s writings about politics and Congress have been published in the Washington Post, Politico, Roll Call, Los Angeles Times, CNN Opinion, GovTrack, and USA Today.
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