Cite as: 530 U. S. 793 (2000)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
materials, equipment, or property. § 7372(c)(1). A private school receives the materials and equipment listed in § 7351(b)(2) by submitting to the LEA an application detailing which items the school seeks and how it will use them; the LEA, if it approves the application, purchases those items from the school's allocation of funds, and then lends them to that school.
In Jefferson Parish (the Louisiana governmental unit at issue in this case), as in Louisiana as a whole, private schools have primarily used their allocations for nonrecurring expenses, usually materials and equipment. In the 1986-1987 fiscal year, for example, 44% of the money budgeted for private schools in Jefferson Parish was spent by LEA's for acquiring library and media materials, and 48% for instructional equipment. Among the materials and equipment provided have been library books, computers, and computer software, and also slide and movie projectors, overhead projectors, television sets, tape recorders, VCR's, projection screens, laboratory equipment, maps, globes, filmstrips, slides, and cassette recordings.2
It appears that, in an average year, about 30% of Chapter 2 funds spent in Jefferson Parish are allocated for private schools. For the 1985-1986 fiscal year, 41 private schools participated in Chapter 2. For the following year, 46 participated, and the participation level has remained relatively constant since then. See App. 132a. Of these 46, 34 were Roman Catholic; 7 were otherwise religiously affiliated; and 5 were not religiously affiliated.
B
Respondents filed suit in December 1985, alleging, among other things, that Chapter 2, as applied in Jefferson Parish,
2 Congress in 1988 amended the section governing the sorts of materials and equipment available under Chapter 2. Compare 20 U. S. C. § 3832(1)(B) (1982 ed.) with § 7351(b)(2) (1994 ed.). The record in this case closed in 1989, and the effect of the amendment is not at issue.
803
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