Cite as: 530 U. S. 793 (2000)
Souter, J., dissenting
After Everson and Allen, the state of the law applying the Establishment Clause to public expenditures producing some benefit to religious schools was this:
1. Government aid to religion is forbidden, and tax revenue may not be used to support a religious school or religious teaching. 2. Government provision of such paradigms of universally general welfare benefits as police and fire protection does not count as aid to religion. 3. Whether a law's benefit is sufficiently close to universally general welfare paradigms to be classified with them, as distinct from religious aid, is a function of the purpose and effect of the challenged law in all its particularity. The judgment is not reducible to the application of any formula. Evenhandedness of distribution as between religious and secular beneficiaries is a relevant factor, but not a sufficiency test of constitutionality. There is no rule of religious equal protection to the effect that any expenditure for the benefit of religious school students is necessarily constitutional so long as public school pupils are favored on ostensibly identical terms. 4. Government must maintain neutrality as to religion, "neutrality" being a conclusory label for the required position of government as neither aiding religion nor impeding religious exercise by believers. "Neutrality" was not the name of any test to identify permissible action, and in particular, was not synonymous with evenhandedness in conferring benefit on the secular as well as the religious.
Today, the substantive principle of no aid to religious mission remains the governing understanding of the Establishment Clause as applied to public benefits inuring to religious schools. The governing opinions on the subject in the 35 years since Allen have never challenged this principle. The
877
Page: Index Previous 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007