Cite as: 512 U. S. 687 (1994)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
trict as a genuine accommodation. In Gillette, supra, the Court upheld a military draft exemption, even though the burden on those without religious objection to war (the increased chance of being drafted and forced to risk one's life in battle) was substantial. And in Corporation of Presiding Bishop, the Court upheld the Title VII exemption even though it permitted employment discrimination against non-practitioners of the religious organization's faith. There is a point, to be sure, at which an accommodation may impose a burden on nonadherents so great that it becomes an establishment. See, e. g., Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U. S. 703, 709-710 (1985) (invalidating mandatory Sabbath day off because it provided "no exception when honoring the dictates of Sabbath observers would cause the employer substantial economic burdens or when the employer's compliance would require the imposition of significant burdens on other employees required to work in place of the Sabbath observers"). This action has not been argued, however, on the theory that non-Satmars suffer any special burdens from the existence of the Kiryas Joel Village School District.
Third, the creation of the school district to alleviate the special burdens born by the handicapped Satmar children cannot be said, for that reason alone, to favor the Satmar religion to the exclusion of any other. "The clearest command of the Establishment Clause," of course, "is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another." Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228, 244 (1982); accord, Smith, supra, at 886, n. 3. I disagree, however, with the Court's conclusion that the school district breaches this command. The Court insists that religious favoritism is a danger here, because the "anomalously case-specific nature of the legislature's exercise of state authority in creating this district for a religious community leaves the Court without any direct way to review such state action" to ensure inter-denominational neutrality. Ante, at 703. "Because the religious community of Kiryas Joel did not receive its new gov-
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