694
Opinion of the Court
in the village, N. Y. Educ. Law § 3202 (McKinney 1981 and Supp. 1994), the Kiryas Joel Village School District currently runs only a special education program for handicapped children. The other village children have stayed in their parochial schools, relying on the new school district only for transportation, remedial education, and health and welfare services. If any child without a handicap in Kiryas Joel were to seek a public-school education, the district would pay tuition to send the child into Monroe-Woodbury or another school district nearby. Under like arrangements, several of the neighboring districts send their handicapped Hasidic children into Kiryas Joel, so that two thirds of the full-time students in the village's public school come from outside. In all, the new district serves just over 40 full-time students, and two or three times that many parochial school students on a part-time basis.
Several months before the new district began operations, the New York State School Boards Association and respondents Grumet and Hawk brought this action against the State Education Department and various state officials, challenging Chapter 748 under the National and State Constitutions as an unconstitutional establishment of religion.2 The State Supreme Court for Albany County allowed the Kiryas Joel Village School District and the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District to intervene as parties defendant and accepted the parties' stipulation discontinuing the action against the original state defendants, although the attorney general of New York continued to appear to defend the constitutionality of the statute. See N. Y. Exec. Law § 71 (Mc-2 Messrs. Grumet and Hawk sued in both their individual capacities and as officers of the State School Boards Association, but New York's Appellate Division ruled that the Association and its officers lacked standing to challenge the constitutionality of Chapter 748. 187 App. Div. 2d 16, 19, 592 N. Y. S. 2d 123, 126 (1992). Thus, as the case comes to us, respondents are simply citizen taxpayers. See N. Y. State Fin. Law § 123 (McKinney 1989).
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