Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 24 (1997)

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226

AGOSTINI v. FELTON

Opinion of the Court

n. 38 (1973)). The grants were disbursed directly to students, who then used the money to pay for tuition at the educational institution of their choice. In our view, this transaction was no different from a State's issuing a paycheck to one of its employees, knowing that the employee would donate part or all of the check to a religious institution. In both situations, any money that ultimately went to religious institutions did so "only as a result of the genuinely independent and private choices of" individuals. 474 U. S., at 487. The same logic applied in Zobrest, where we allowed the State to provide an interpreter, even though she would be a mouthpiece for religious instruction, because the IDEA's neutral eligibility criteria ensured that the interpreter's presence in a sectarian school was a "result of the private decision of individual parents" and "[could not] be attributed to state decisionmaking." 509 U. S., at 10 (emphasis added). Because the private school would not have provided an interpreter on its own, we also concluded that the aid in Zobrest did not indirectly finance religious education by "reliev[ing] [the] sectarian schoo[l] of costs [it] otherwise would have borne in educating [its] students." Id., at 12.

Zobrest and Witters make clear that, under current law, the Shared Time program in Ball and New York City's Title I program in Aguilar will not, as a matter of law, be deemed to have the effect of advancing religion through indoctrination. Indeed, each of the premises upon which we relied in Ball to reach a contrary conclusion is no longer valid. First, there is no reason to presume that, simply because she enters a parochial school classroom, a full-time public employee such as a Title I teacher will depart from her assigned duties and instructions and embark on religious indoctrination, any more than there was a reason in Zobrest to think an interpreter would inculcate religion by altering her translation of classroom lectures. Certainly, no evidence has ever shown that any New York City Title I instructor teaching on parochial school premises attempted to inculcate religion in stu-

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