Cite as: 521 U. S. 203 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
tion is given on the premises of sectarian schools by government employees pursuant to a program containing safeguards such as those present here. The same considerations that justify this holding require us to conclude that this carefully constrained program also cannot reasonably be viewed as an endorsement of religion. Accord, Witters, 474 U. S., at 488-489 ("[T]he mere circumstance that [an aid recipient] has chosen to use neutrally available state aid to help pay for [a] religious education [does not] confer any message of state endorsement of religion"); Bowen, supra, at 613-614 (finding no " 'symbolic link' " when Congress made federal funds neutrally available for adolescent counseling). Accordingly, we must acknowledge that Aguilar, as well as the portion of Ball addressing Grand Rapids' Shared Time program, are no longer good law.
C
The doctrine of stare decisis does not preclude us from recognizing the change in our law and overruling Aguilar and those portions of Ball inconsistent with our more recent decisions. As we have often noted, "[s]tare decisis is not an inexorable command," Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 828 (1991), but instead reflects a policy judgment that "in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right," Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U. S. 393, 406 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). That policy is at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment or by overruling our prior decisions. Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 63 (1996); Payne, supra, at 828; St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 38, 94 (1936) (Stone and Cardozo, JJ., concurring in result) ("The doctrine of stare decisis . . . has only a limited application in the field of constitutional law"). Thus, we have held in several cases that stare decisis does not prevent us from overruling a previous decision where
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