708
Opinion of the Court
ceedings (a process that appears not to have run its course prior to resort to Chapter 748, see Board of Ed. of Monroe-Woodbury Central School Dist. v. Wieder, 72 N. Y. 2d, at 180, 527 N. E. 2d, at 770), and if the New York Legislature should remain dissatisfied with the responsiveness of the local school district, it could certainly enact general legislation tightening the mandate to school districts on matters of special education or bilingual and bicultural offerings.
III
Justice Cardozo once cast the dissenter as "the gladiator making a last stand against the lions." B. Cardozo, Law and Literature 34 (1931). Justice Scalia's dissent is certainly the work of a gladiator, but he thrusts at lions of his own imagining. We do not disable a religiously homogeneous group from exercising political power conferred on it without regard to religion. Cf. post, at 735-736. Unlike the States of Utah and New Mexico (which were laid out according to traditional political methodologies taking account of lines of latitude and longitude and topographical features, see U. S. Dept. of Interior, F. Van Zandt, Boundaries of the United States and the Several States 250-257 (Geological Survey Bulletin 1212, 1966)), the reference line chosen for the Kiryas Joel Village School District was one purposely drawn to separate Satmars from non-Satmars. Nor do we impugn the motives of the New York Legislature, cf. post, at 737-740, which no doubt intended to accommodate the Satmar community without violating the Establishment Clause; we simply refuse to ignore that the method it chose is one that aids a particular religious community, as such, see App. 19-20 (Assembly sponsor thrice describes the Act's beneficiaries as the "Hasidic" children or community), rather than all groups similarly interested in separate schooling. The dissent protests it is novel to insist " 'up front' " that a statute not tailor its benefits to apply only to one religious group, post, at 747- 748, but if this were so, Texas Monthly, Inc., would have
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