Cite as: 530 U. S. 793 (2000)
O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment
specifically provides that the relevant public agency must retain title to the materials and equipment. § 7372(c)(1). Together with the supplantation restriction, this provision ensures that religious schools reap no financial benefit by virtue of receiving loans of materials and equipment. Finally, the statute provides that all Chapter 2 materials and equipment must be "secular, neutral, and nonideological." § 7372(a)(1). That restriction is reinforced by a further statutory prohibition on "the making of any payment . . . for religious worship or instruction." § 8897. Although respondents claim that Chapter 2 aid has been diverted to religious instruction, that evidence is de minimis, as I explain at greater length below. See infra, at 864-867.
III
Respondents contend that Agostini is distinguishable, pointing to the distinct character of the aid program considered there. See Brief for Respondents 44-47. In Agostini, federal funds paid for public-school teachers to provide secular instruction to eligible children on the premises of their religious schools. Here, in contrast, federal funds pay for instructional materials and equipment that LEA's lend to religious schools for use by those schools' own teachers in their classes. Because we held similar programs unconstitutional in Meek and Wolman, respondents contend that those decisions, and not Agostini, are controlling. See, e. g., Brief for Respondents 11, 22-25. Like respondents, Justice Souter also relies on Meek and Wolman in finding the character of the Chapter 2 aid constitutionally problematic. See post, at 893, 903.
At the time they were decided, Meek and Wolman created an inexplicable rift within our Establishment Clause jurisprudence concerning government aid to schools. Seven years before our decision in Meek, we held in Allen that a New York statute that authorized the lending of textbooks to students attending religious schools did not violate the
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