Cite as: 512 U. S. 687 (1994)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
that the other Satmar children attended. Because their handicaps were in some cases acute (ranging from mental retardation and deafness to spina bifida and cerebral palsy), the State of New York provided public funds for special education of these children at annexes to the religious schools. Then came the companion cases of School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373 (1985), and Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U. S. 402 (1985). In Grand Rapids, the Court invalidated a program in which public school teachers would offer supplemental classes at private schools, including religious schools, at the end of the regular schoolday. And in Aguilar, the Court invalidated New York City's use of Title I funding to pay the salaries of public school teachers who taught educationally deprived children of low-income families at parochial schools in the city. After these cases, the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District suspended its special education program at the Kiryas Joel religious schools, and the Kiryas Joel parents were forced to enroll their handicapped children at the Monroe-Woodbury public schools in order for the children to receive special education. The ensuing difficulties, as the Court recounts, ante, at 692-693, led to the creation of the Kiryas Joel Village School District.
The decisions in Grand Rapids and Aguilar may have been erroneous. In light of the action before us, and in the interest of sound elaboration of constitutional doctrine, it may be necessary for us to reconsider them at a later date. A neutral aid scheme, available to religious and nonreligious alike, is the preferable way to address problems such as the Satmar handicapped children have suffered. See Witters, 474 U. S., at 490-492 (Powell, J., concurring). But for Grand Rapids and Aguilar, the Satmars would have had no need to seek special accommodations or their own school district. Our decisions led them to choose that unfortunate course, with the deficiencies I have described.
One misjudgment is no excuse, however, for compounding it with another. We must confront this litigation as it comes be-
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