826
Opinion of Thomas, J.
prosecuting a lawsuit." 473 U. S., at 429. While the dissent delights in the perverse chaos that all these factors produce, post, at 899; see also post, at 869, 885, the Constitution becomes unnecessarily clouded, and legislators, litigants, and lower courts groan, as the history of this case amply demonstrates. See Part I-B, supra.
One of the dissent's factors deserves special mention: whether a school that receives aid (or whose students receive aid) is pervasively sectarian. The dissent is correct that there was a period when this factor mattered, particularly if the pervasively sectarian school was a primary or secondary school. Post, at 885-887, 894, 898, 902-906. But that period is one that the Court should regret, and it is thankfully long past.
There are numerous reasons to formally dispense with this factor. First, its relevance in our precedents is in sharp decline. Although our case law has consistently mentioned it even in recent years, we have not struck down an aid program in reliance on this factor since 1985, in Aguilar and Ball. Agostini of course overruled Aguilar in full and Ball in part, and today Justice O'Connor distances herself from the part of Ball with which she previously agreed, by rejecting the distinction between public and private employees that was so prominent in Agostini. Compare post, at 858- 860, 863-864 (opinion concurring in judgment), with Agostini, supra, at 223-225, 234-235. In Witters, a year after Aguilar and Ball, we did not ask whether the Inland Empire School of the Bible was pervasively sectarian. In Bowen, a 1988 decision, we refused to find facially invalid an aid program (although one not involving schools) whose recipients had, the District Court found, included pervasively sectarian institutions. See 487 U. S., at 636, 647, 648 (Blackmun, J., dissenting). Although we left it open on remand for the District Court to reaffirm its prior finding, we took pains to emphasize the narrowness of the "pervasively sectarian" category, see id., at 620-621 (opinion of the Court), and two
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