Ball, William B. (1916–1999)

William Bentley Ball was an American attorney, author, and expert on constitutional questions affecting religious liberty. Ball appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court in more than 20 cases involving the free exercise of religious belief and practice. Several of these cases are landmarks in the development of case law and policy on church–state relations. In Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause by making state aid available to religious schools. In Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), the Court held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment exempted Amish parents from obeying state compulsory attendance laws on religious grounds. In Bob Jones University v. U.S. (1983), the Court held that racial discrimination in a religious institution violated public policy. In Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District (1993), the Court ruled that the Establishment Clause did not prohibit a public school district from providing an interpreter for a deaf student in a parochial school. Although Ball's views did not always prevail, his arguments influenced the shape of state and federal policy in church–state relations for a quarter of a century and frequently benefited those who opposed state education policy and practice.

Freedom of religion and religious expression were Ball's passion. For him, freedom of religion was the foundational constitutional freedom, ranking ahead of the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and petition enumerated in the First Amendment. Religious freedom was just as surely protected from unwarranted governmental encroachment as were the other First Amendment freedoms. The citizen's right to religious beliefs and practice was not a matter of privilege or exemption. It was a guaranteed constitutional right with which the state might interfere only if it could establish a compelling state interest to do so.

One of the areas where citizens might exercise religious belief was the education of children. The First Amendment guaranteed parents the right to choose a religious education for their children. Ball believed that the state is constrained from interference with this right, either by denying parents the financial means to afford religious education or by undue state regulation of curriculum content, textbooks, or teachers in religious schools. For Ball, even state regulation of religious schools based on health and safety concerns should be closely scrutinized (e.g., Ohio v. Whisner, 1976; Kentucky State Board for Elementary and Secondary Education v. Rudasill, 1979). Tax credits, school vouchers, and a nonintrusive state were considered essential to the full exercise of religious liberty, and Ball fought for all three.

Ball's view of religious liberty was not always shared. He considered himself the champion of the most unpopular of unpopular causes. A prominent Roman Catholic layman, he was criticized on the grounds that his support of the exemption of Amish parents from compulsory attendance laws [Page 84]because of religious beliefs was a first step toward winning the same privilege for Roman Catholic and other parochial school parents. Ball's work to secure passage of a Pennsylvania law providing tax support for students in religious schools was wiped away by the Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). His efforts to secure federal dollars for parochial schools were also fruitless. Ball's views were particularly unpopular with public school bureaucrats, whom he called “The Guardians” after the ruling elite in Plato's Republic. Over time, Ball grew pessimistic about the security of religious freedom in American society, especially after the Supreme Court's ruling in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), in which the Court held that religious belief did not exempt citizens from the impact of generally applicable state or federal laws. Ball believed that the Court's ruling in the Employment Division v. Smith case represented a major threat to the constitutional protection of freedom of religion. Yet he hoped that raising public awareness of the primacy of religious freedom would shield it from the almost unlimited power of the state.

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