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On June 29, 1948, North Dakota voters passed an initiative that prohibited Catholic nuns from wearing their habits while teaching in public schools. Known as the Anti-Garb bill, this law was the culmination of a long battle to drive nuns from public schools. Due to a shortage of qualified teachers and insuficient funding for public education, many states, including North Dakota, had hired nuns to teach in public schools during the first half of the twentieth century. Fearing that the Catholic Church would dominate public education, many communities opposed this practice. North Dakota became the center of opposition on the Great Plains.
While North Dakota schools had employed
nuns since 1918, no formal protests appeared
in the courts until the 1936 case of Gerhardt v.
Heid. Filed against three Benedictine sisters
who wore their religious garb while employed
by the Gladstone school district in Dickinson,
North Dakota, this civil case eventually
reached the North Dakota Supreme Court. The
plaintiffs argued that the primarily Protestant
schoolchildren's First Amendment rights to
freedom of religion had been violated by constant
exposure to their teachers' religious
garb. Interestingly, the nuns also invoked
the First Amendment, arguing that a ban on
wearing habits would be a violation of their
right to practice their religion. Because the
sisters had not taught religious doctrine or required
students to participate in religious activities,
the supreme court ruled in favor of
the sisters.
The court's ruling did not end protests
against the employment of nuns in North Dakota
public schools. During the 1940s, for example,
the legislature twice failed to pass antigarb
bills. In 1948 an organization known as
the Committee for the Separation of Church
and State (CSCS), primarily comprised of
Protestant ministers, led a campaign to have
an anti-garb initiative put to the voters. The
real issue was not the clothing worn by the
sisters but rather a fear that nuns would impose
a sectarian influence on schoolchildren
and that the Catholic Church would eventually
dominate public education. After collecting
more than 100,000 signatures, the cscs
filed a petition with the secretary of state, and
the initiative was placed on the ballot for the
1948 election.
In response to the cscs's initiative drive, a group called the Committee for the Defense of Civil Rights organized to battle the anti-garb bill. Using leaflets, pamphlets, and speeches, both sides waged an intense public campaign, and voters thronged to the polls–10,000 more turned out for the 1948 election than for the previous gubernatorial election. Despite more than 50,000 non-Catholics voting against the initiative, voters passed North Dakota's anti-garb bill.
The anti-garb bill did not immediately
drive nuns from public schools. Not until the
early 1960s did they disappear from North Dakota's
public schools. Those who continued
teaching in public schools, however, were
forced to alter their teaching attire; some wore
green Women's Army Corps (WAC) uniforms.
North Dakota's anti-garb bill was an early battle
in the debate over religion in public education.
Today, the battle has moved to issues
such as prayer in public schools and government
aid to parochial schools.