854
O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment
that the books will not be used for religious purposes." Wolman, supra, at 252, n. 18. Thus, the Wolman Court never justified the inconsistent treatment it accorded the lending of textbooks and the lending of instructional materials and equipment based on the items' reasonable divertibility.
Justice Souter's attempt to defend the divertibility rationale as a viable distinction in our Establishment Clause jurisprudence fares no better. For Justice Souter, secular school aid presents constitutional problems not only when it is actually diverted to religious ends, but also when it simply has the capacity for, or presents the possibility of, such diversion. See, e. g., post, at 893 (discussing "susceptibility [of secular supplies] to the service of religious ends"). Thus, he explains the Allen, Meek, and Wolman decisions as follows: "While the textbooks had a known and fixed secular content not readily divertible to religious teaching purposes, the adaptable materials did not." Post, at 893-894. This view would have come as a surprise to the Court in Meek, which expressly conceded that "the material and equipment that are the subjects of the loan . . . are 'self-polic[ing], in that starting as secular, nonideological and neutral, they will not change in use.' " 421 U. S., at 365 (quoting Meek v. Pittenger, 374 F. Supp. 639, 660 (ED Pa. 1974)). Indeed, given the nature of the instructional materials considered in Meek and Wolman, it is difficult to comprehend how a divertibility rationale could have explained the decisions. The statutes at issue in those cases authorized the lending of "periodicals, photographs, maps, charts, sound recordings, [and] films," Meek, supra, at 355, and "maps and globes," Wolman, supra, at 249. There is no plausible basis for saying that these items are somehow more divertible than a textbook given that each of the above items, like a textbook, has a fixed and ascertainable content.
In any event, even if Meek and Wolman had articulated the divertibility rationale urged by respondents and Justice
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