Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U.S. 793, 102 (2000)

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Cite as: 530 U. S. 793 (2000)

Souter, J., dissenting

With the same point in mind, we held that buildings constructed with government grants to universities with religious affiliation must be barred from religious use indefinitely to prevent the diversion of government funds to religious objectives. Tilton, 403 U. S., at 683 (plurality opinion) ("If, at the end of 20 years, the building is, for example, converted into a chapel or otherwise used to promote religious interests, the original federal grant will in part have the effect of advancing religion. To this extent the Act therefore trespasses on the Religion Clauses"); see also Hunt, 413 U. S., at 743-744. We were accordingly constrained to strike down aid for repairing buildings of nonpublic schools because they could be used for religious education. Nyquist, 413 U. S., at 776-777.

Divertibility was, again, the issue in an order remanding an as-applied challenge to a grant supporting counseling on teenage sexuality for findings that the aid had not been used to support religious education. Bowen, 487 U. S., at 621; see also id., at 623 (O'Connor, J., concurring). And the most recent example of attention to the significance of divertibility occurred in our explanation that public school teachers could be assigned to provide limited instruction in religious schools in Agostini, 521 U. S., at 223-227, a majority of the Court rejecting the factual assumption that public school teachers could be readily lured into providing religious instruction.16

16 The plurality is mistaken in its reading of Zobrest. See ante, at 820- 821. Zobrest does not reject the principle of divertibility. There the government provided only a translator who was not considered divertible because he did not add to or subtract from the religious message. The Court approved the translator as it would approve a hearing aid, health services, diagnostics, and tests. See Zobrest, 509 U. S., at 13, and n. 10. Cf. Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U. S. 291, 299-300 (1899); Wolman, 433 U. S., at 244. Zobrest thus can be thought of as akin to our approval of diagnostic services in Wolman, supra, at 244, which we considered to have "little or no educational content[,] not [to be] closely associated with the educational mission of the nonpublic school," and not to pose "an impermissible

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