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Jefferson’s 1802 metaphor of “a wall of separation” between church and state. This metaphor became an increasingly common trope in later opinions, appearing in roughly twenty Court cases in the second half of the twentieth century. But “separation” was an ambiguous concept, susceptible to profound misinterpretation and perversion of the proper principles at stake. 9
    Consider the “separation of powers.” One version of this separation simply means that election to one branch of government does not automatically entitle the winner to hold a position in a different branch ofgovernment. Thus, in America—unlike England—the person elected to lead the legislature does not thereby become the chief executive. But a stronger version of separation of powers is also easily imaginable: Membership in one branch of government disqualifies the member from holding a position in a different branch of government. This, too, is part of the American Constitution: The incompatibility clause of Article I, section 6, prohibits any sitting member of Congress from holding a federal executive or judicial office.
    Now consider analogous issues raised by the so-called “wall of separation between church and state.” Under a sensibly modest version of this metaphor, no church official would automatically be entitled to sit in government. Thus, in America—unlike England—an Anglican archbishop is not automatically a member of any official legislative body, such as the “Lords Spiritual.” But under a stricter version of separation, the fact that a person is a clergyman might actually disqualify him for a position in government.
    Jefferson himself at times leaned in this anticlerical direction, and most states in the Founding era did indeed embrace formal disqualifications of clergymen. However, the modern Court has made clear (in a unanimous 1978 decision, McDaniel v. Paty ) that such discrimination against religious officials is unconstitutional—a profound violation of proper principles of religious liberty and equality.
    But so long as some justices use the metaphor of separation as their polestar, it becomes easier to think that rules like the one excluding the clergy are permissible, and perhaps even required, rather than being obvious affronts to America’s post-Reconstruction Constitution of liberty and equality for all.
    To return to the school system for a handy hypothetical, suppose that the government decides to give every child a computer so that, truly, no child will be left behind. In this hypothetical government program, every child attending a public school receives this computer, as does every child who attends a private school that is either aggressively secular or merely religiously indifferent. But what about children who attend private religious schools—schools whose curricula are otherwise comparable to the private nonreligious schools but that also add religion to the educational experience? May children at such schools receive the computers? Must they?
    Anyone whose organizing metaphor is separation might be inclined to answer no to both questions. Thus, several post–Warren Court cases from the mid-1970s, when talk of Jefferson’s wall reached its peak on the Court, actually held that this sort of discrimination against religious schools was not merely constitutionally permissible but constitutionally required. Fortunately, over the past decade the Court has returned to its senses, overruled several of these cases, and begun to see and say clearly that of course private religious schools should not be treated worse than otherwise comparable private nonreligious schools. The schools should be treated equally, as should the children. So long as a private school meets proper educational standards for teaching the basic 3 Rs and so on, it is simply none of the government’s business whether religion is taught pervasively or in a special part of the curriculum or whether the kids are praying in