Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 39 (1997)

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Cite as: 521 U. S. 203 (1997)

Souter, J., dissenting

paralleled scale, in violation of the Establishment Clause's central prohibition against religious subsidies by the government.

I respectfully dissent.

I

In both Aguilar and Ball, we held that supplemental instruction by public school teachers on the premises of religious schools during regular school hours violated the Establishment Clause. Aguilar, of course, concerned the very school system before us here and the same Title I program at issue now, see ante, at 211-212, under which local educational agencies receive public funds to provide remedial education, guidance, and job counseling to eligible students, including those attending religious schools. Immediately before Aguilar, New York City used Title I funds to provide guidance services and classes in remedial reading, remedial mathematics, and English as a second language to students at religious schools, as it did by sending employees of the public school system, including teachers, guidance counselors, psychologists, and social workers, into the religious schools. See Aguilar, supra, at 406. Ball involved a program similar in many respects to Title I called Shared Time,1 under which the local school district provided religious school students with "supplementary" classes in their religious schools, taught by teachers who were full-time employees of the public schools, in subjects including remedial math and reading, art, music, and physical education. See 473 U. S., at 375.

We held that both schemes ran afoul of the Establishment Clause. The Shared Time program had the impermissible effect of promoting religion in three ways: first, state-paid teachers conducting classes in a sectarian environment might

1 School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373 (1985), also invalidated a separate program called Community Education that is distinct from the Title I program at issue today. I do not understand the Court's discussion to implicate Ball's evaluation of the Community Education program.

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