Cite as: 512 U. S. 687 (1994)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
rather than to political issues are generated; communities seek not the best representative but the best racial or religious partisan. Since that system is at war with the democratic ideal, it should find no footing here." Wright v. Rockefeller, 376 U. S. 52, 67 (1964) (Douglas, J., dissenting) (quoted in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630, 648-649 (1993)).
I agree with the Court insofar as it invalidates the school district for being drawn along religious lines. As the plurality observes, ante, at 699-700, the New York Legislature knew that everyone within the village was Satmar when it drew the school district along the village lines, and it determined who was to be included in the district by imposing, in effect, a religious test. There is no serious question that the legislature configured the school district, with purpose and precision, along a religious line. This explicit religious gerrymandering violates the First Amendment Establishment Clause.
It is important to recognize the limits of this principle. We do not confront the constitutionality of the Kiryas Joel village itself, and the formation of the village appears to differ from the formation of the school district in one critical respect. As the Court notes, ante, at 703, n. 7, the village was formed pursuant to a religion-neutral self-incorporation scheme. Under New York law, a territory with at least 500 residents and not more than five square miles may be incorporated upon petition by at least 20 percent of the voting residents of that territory or by the owners of more than 50 percent of the territory's real property. N. Y. Village Law §§ 2-200, 2-202 (McKinney 1973 and Supp. 1994). Aside from ensuring that the petition complies with certain procedural requirements, the supervisor of the town in which the territory is located has no discretion to reject the petition. § 2-206; see Decision on Sufficiency of Petition, in App. 8, 14 ("[T]he hollow provisions of the Village Law . . . allow me only to review the procedural niceties of the petition itself").
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