Cite as: 530 U. S. 793 (2000)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
of a federal program for the disabled, provide a sign-language interpreter to a deaf student at a Catholic high school.
Judge Livaudais also relied heavily on a 1995 decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Walker v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 46 F. 3d 1449, upholding Chapter 2 on facts that he found "virtually indistinguishable." The Ninth Circuit acknowledged in Walker, as Judge Heebe had in his 1990 summary judgment ruling, that Meek and Wolman appeared to erect a constitutional distinction between providing textbooks (permissible) and providing any other in-kind aid (impermissible). 46 F. 3d, at 1464- 1465; see Board of Ed. of Central School Dist. No. 1 v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236 (1968) (upholding textbook program). The Court of Appeals viewed this distinction, however, as "thin" and "unmoored from any Establishment Clause principles," and, more importantly, as "rendered untenable" by subsequent cases, particularly Zobrest. 46 F. 3d, at 1465-1466. These cases, in the Ninth Circuit's view, revived the principle of Allen and of Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing,3 that "state benefits provided to all citizens without regard to religion are constitutional." 46 F. 3d, at 1465. The Ninth Circuit also relied, id., at 1467, on our observation in Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U. S. 687 (1994), that "we have frequently relied explicitly on the general availability of any benefit provided religious groups or individuals in turning aside Establishment Clause challenges," id., at 704. The Ninth Circuit purported to distinguish Meek and Wolman based on the percentage of schools receiving aid that were parochial (a large percentage in those cases and a moderate percentage in Walker), 46 F. 3d, at 1468, but that court undermined this distinction when it observed that Meek also upheld "the massive provision of text-3 Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947) (upholding reimbursement to parents for costs of busing their children to public or private school).
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