Cite as: 530 U. S. 793 (2000)
Opinion of Thomas, J.
fulfilled her assigned duties, see id., at 224-225, had "no inherent religious significance," Allen, 392 U. S., at 244 (discussing bus rides in Everson), and so it did not matter (given the neutrality and private choice involved in the program) that she "would be a mouthpiece for religious instruction," Agostini, supra, at 226 (discussing Zobrest). And just as a government interpreter does not herself inculcate a religious message—even when she is conveying one—so also a government computer or overhead projector does not itself inculcate a religious message, even when it is conveying one.
In Agostini itself, we approved the provision of public employees to teach secular remedial classes in private schools partly because we concluded that there was no reason to suspect that indoctrinating content would be part of such governmental aid. See 521 U. S., at 223-225, 226-227, 234-235. Relying on Zobrest, we refused to presume that the public teachers would " 'inject religious content' " into their classes, 521 U. S., at 225, especially given certain safeguards that existed; we also saw no evidence that they had done so, id., at 226-227.
In Allen we similarly focused on content, emphasizing that the textbooks were preapproved by public school authorities and were not "unsuitable for use in the public schools because of religious content." 392 U. S., at 245. See Lemon, 403 U. S., at 617 ("We note that the dissenters in Allen seemed chiefly concerned with the pragmatic difficulties involved in ensuring the truly secular content of the textbooks" (emphasis added)). Although it might appear that a book, because it has a pre-existing content, is not divertible, and thus that lack of divertibility motivated our holding in Allen, it is hard to imagine any book that could not, in even moderately skilled hands, serve to illustrate a religious message.10 Post, at 855 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment)
10 Although we did, elsewhere in Board of Ed. of Central School Dist. No. 1 v. Allen, 392 U. S. 236 (1968), observe, in response to a party's argument, that there was no evidence that the schools were using secular text-
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