796
Syllabus
bility but whether the aid itself has an impermissible content. Where the aid would be suitable for use in a public school, it is also suitable for use in any private school. Similarly, the prohibition against the government providing impermissible content resolves the Establishment Clause concerns that exist if aid is actually diverted to religious uses. See, e. g., Agostini, supra, at 224-226. A concern for divertibility, as opposed to improper content, is also misplaced because it is boundless— enveloping all aid, no matter how trivial—and thus has only the most attenuated (if any) link to any realistic concern for preventing an establishment of religion. Finally, any aid, with or without content, is "divertible" in the sense that it allows schools to "divert" resources. Yet the Court has not accepted the recurrent argument that all aid is forbidden because aid to one aspect of an institution frees it to spend its other resources on religious ends. E. g., Committee for Public Ed. and Religious Liberty v. Regan, 444 U. S. 646, 658. Pp. 820-825.
(d) Additional factors cited by the dissent—including the concern for political divisiveness that post-Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U. S. 402, cases have disregarded, see, e. g., Agostini, supra, at 233-234, are rejected. In particular, whether a recipient school is pervasively sectarian, a factor that has been disregarded in recent cases, e. g., Witters, supra, is not relevant to the constitutionality of a school-aid program. Pp. 825-829.
(e) Applying the two relevant Agostini criteria reveals that there is no basis for concluding that Jefferson Parish's Chapter 2 program has the effect of advancing religion. First, Chapter 2 does not define its recipients by reference to religion, since aid is allocated on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion, and is made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis. 521 U. S., at 231. There is no improper incentive because, under the statute, aid is allocated based on school enrollment. Second, Chapter 2 does not result in governmental indoctrination of religion. It determines eligibility for aid neutrally, making a broad array of schools eligible without regard to their religious affiliations or lack thereof. See id., at 225-226. It also allocates aid based on the private choices of students and their parents as to which schools to attend. See id., at 222. Thus, it is not problematic that Chapter 2 could fairly be described as providing "direct" aid. Finally, the Chapter 2 aid provided to religious schools does not have an impermissible content. The statute explicitly requires that such aid be "secular, neutral, and nonideological," and the record indicates that the Louisiana SEA and the Jefferson Parish LEA have faithfully enforced this requirement insofar as relevant to this case. Although there is evidence that equipment has been, or at least easily could be, diverted for use in religious classes, that evidence is not relevant to the constitutional analysis.
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