Cite as: 521 U. S. 203 (1997)
Souter, J., dissenting
C
The Court notes that aid programs providing benefits solely to religious groups may be constitutionally suspect, while aid allocated under neutral, secular criteria is less likely to have the effect of advancing religion. Ante, at 230- 231. The opinion then says that Ball and Aguilar "gave this consideration no weight," ante, at 231, and accordingly conflict with a number of decisions. But what exactly the Court thinks Ball and Aguilar inadequately considered is not clear, given that evenhandedness is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an aid program to satisfy constitutional scrutiny. Title I services are available to all eligible children regardless of whether they go to religious or public schools, but, as I have explained elsewhere and am not alone in recognizing, see, e. g., Rosenberger, 515 U. S., at 846-847 (O’Connor, J., concurring); id., at 879-885 (Souter, J., dissenting); see also Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 614, 621 (1988), that fact does not define the reach of the Establishment Clause. If a scheme of government aid results in support for religion in some substantial degree, or in endorsement of its value, the formal neutrality of the scheme does not render the Establishment Clause helpless or the holdings in Aguilar and Ball inapposite.
III
Finally, there is the issue of precedent. Stare decisis is no barrier in the Court's eyes because it reads Aguilar and Ball for exaggerated propositions that Witters and Zobrest are supposed to have limited to the point of abandoned doctrine. Cf. Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 173-174 (1989). The Court's dispensation from stare decisis is, accordingly, no more convincing than its reading of those cases. Since Aguilar came down, no case has held that there need be no concern about a risk that publicly paid school teachers may further religious doctrine; no case has repudiated the distinction between direct and substantial aid
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