Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U.S. 793, 117 (2000)

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910

MITCHELL v. HELMS

Souter, J., dissenting

were discovered among others that had been ordered under the program. See also id., at 59a-62a.

The evidence persuasively suggests that other aid was actually diverted as well. The principal of one religious school testified, for example, that computers lent with Chapter 2 funds were joined in a network with other non-Chapter 2 computers in some schools, and that religious officials and teachers were allowed to develop their own unregulated software for use on this network. Id., at 77a. She admitted that the Chapter 2 computer took over the support of the computing system whenever there was a breakdown of the master computer purchased with the religious school's own funds. Ibid. Moreover, as the plurality observes, ante, at 833-834, n. 17, comparing the records of considerable federal funding of audiovisual equipment in religious schools with records of the schools' use of unidentified audiovisual equipment in religion classes strongly suggests that film projectors and videotape machines purchased with public funds were used in religious indoctrination over a period of at least seven years. App. 205a, 210a, 206a-207a; see also id., at 108a (statement of second-grade teacher indicating that she used audiovisual materials in all classes).

Indeed, the plurality readily recognizes that the aid in question here was divertible and that substantial evidence of actual diversion exists. Ante, at 832-834, and nn. 14-17. Although Justice O'Connor attributes limited significance to the evidence of divertibility and actual diversion, she also recognizes that it exists. Ante, at 864-865 (opinion concurring in judgment). The Court has no choice but to hold that the program as applied violated the Establishment Clause.28

28 Since the divertibility and diversion require a finding of unconstitutionality, I will not explore other grounds, beyond noting the likelihood that unconstitutional supplantation occurred as well. The record demonstrates that Chapter 2 aid impermissibly relieved religious schools of some costs that they otherwise would have borne, and so unconstitutionally sup-

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