724
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327 (1987) (exemption of religious organizations from Title VII's prohibition of religious discrimination); Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 890 (1990) (exemption from drug laws for sacramental peyote use) (dicta).
New York's object in creating the Kiryas Joel Village School District—to accommodate the religious practices of the handicapped Satmar children—is validated by the principles that emerge from these precedents. First, by creating the district, New York sought to alleviate a specific and identifiable burden on the Satmars' religious practice. The Satmars' way of life, which springs out of their strict religious beliefs, conflicts in many respects with mainstream American culture. They do not watch television or listen to radio; they speak Yiddish in their homes and do not read English-language publications; and they have a distinctive hairstyle and dress. Attending the Monroe-Woodbury public schools, where they were exposed to much different ways of life, caused the handicapped Satmar children understandable anxiety and distress. New York was entitled to relieve these significant burdens, even though mainstream public schooling does not conflict with any specific tenet of the Satmars' religious faith. The Title VII exemption upheld in Corporation of Presiding Bishop, supra, for example, covers religious groups who may not believe themselves obliged to employ coreligionists in every instance. See also Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 673 (1970) ("The limits of permissible state accommodation to religion are by no means co-extensive with the noninterference mandated by the Free Exercise Clause"); accord, Smith, supra, at 890 (legislatures may grant accommodations even when courts may not).
Second, by creating the district, New York did not impose or increase any burden on non-Satmars, compared to the burden it lifted from the Satmars, that might disqualify the dis-
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