Cite as: 512 U. S. 687 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
Kinney 1993). On cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court ruled for the plaintiffs (respondents here), finding that the statute failed all three prongs of the test in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971), and was thus unconstitutional under both the National and State Constitutions. Grumet v. New York State Ed. Dept., 151 Misc. 2d 60, 579 N. Y. S. 2d 1004 (1992).
A divided Appellate Division affirmed on the ground that
Chapter 748 had the primary effect of advancing religion, in violation of both constitutions, 187 App. Div. 2d 16, 592 N. Y. S. 2d 123 (1992), and the State Court of Appeals affirmed on the federal question, while expressly reserving the state constitutional issue, 81 N. Y. 2d 518, 618 N. E. 2d 94 (1993). Judge Smith wrote for the court in concluding that because both the district's public-school population and its school board would be exclusively Hasidic, the statute created a "symbolic union of church and State" that was "likely to be perceived by the Satmarer Hasidim as an endorsement of their religious choices, or by nonadherents as a disapproval" of their own. Id., at 529, 618 N. E. 2d, at 100. As a result, said the majority, the statute's primary effect was an impermissible advancement of religious belief. In a concurring opinion, Judge Hancock found the effect purposeful, so that the statute violated the first as well as the second prong of Lemon. 81 N. Y. 2d, at 540, 618 N. E. 2d, at 107. Chief Judge Kaye took a different tack, applying the strict scrutiny we have prescribed for statutes singling out a particular religion for special privileges or burdens; she found Chapter 748 invalid as an unnecessarily broad response to a narrow problem, since it creates a full school district instead of simply prescribing a local school for the village's handicapped children. Id., at 532, 618 N. E. 2d, at 102 (concurring opinion). In dissent, Judge Bellacosa objected that the new district was created to enable the village's handicapped children to receive a secular, public-school education; that this was, indeed, its primary effect; and that any attenuated ben-
695
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