248
Souter, J., dissenting
that Aguilar and the portion of Ball addressing the Shared Time program are "no longer good law," ante, at 235, rests on mistaken reading.
A
Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School Dist., 509 U. S., at 13-14, held that the Establishment Clause does not prevent a school district from providing a sign-language interpreter to a deaf student enrolled in a sectarian school. The Court today relies solely on Zobrest to support its contention that we have "abandoned the presumption erected in Meek [v. Pittenger, 421 U. S. 349 (1975),] and Ball that the placement of public employees on parochial school grounds inevitably results in the impermissible effect of state-sponsored indoctrination or constitutes a symbolic union between government and religion." Ante, at 223. Zobrest, however, is no such sanction for overruling Aguilar or any portion of Ball.
In Zobrest, the Court did indeed recognize that the Establishment Clause lays down no absolute bar to placing public employees in a sectarian school, 509 U. S., at 13, and n. 10, but the rejection of such a per se rule was hinged expressly on the nature of the employee's job, sign-language interpretation (or signing) and the circumscribed role of the signer. On this point (and without reference to the facts that the benefited student had received the same aid before enrolling in the religious school and the employee was to be assigned to the student, not to the school) the Court explained itself this way: "[T]he task of a sign-language interpreter seems to us quite different from that of a teacher or guidance counselor. . . . Nothing in this record suggests that a sign-language interpreter would do more than accurately interpret whatever material is presented to the class as a whole. In fact, ethical guidelines require interpreters to 'transmit everything that is said in exactly the same way it was intended.' " Id., at 13. The signer could thus be seen as more like a hearing aid than a teacher, and the signing could not be understood as an opportunity to inject religious content
Page: Index Previous 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007