Cite as: 530 U. S. 793 (2000)
Souter, J., dissenting
at 244, n. 6 (explicitly recognizing that "the record contains no evidence that any of the private schools in appellants' districts previously provided textbooks for their students"); Lemon, 403 U. S., at 656 (opinion of Brennan, J.) (noting no aid to schools was involved in Allen). We ignored this prohibition only once, in Regan, 444 U. S., at 646; see also ante, at 16, n. 7, where reimbursement for budgeted expenses of required testing was not struck down, but we then quickly returned to the rule as a guideline for permissible aid.17 In
Zobrest, 509 U. S., at 12, the Court specifically distinguished Meek and Ball by explaining that the invalid programs in those cases "relieved sectarian schools of costs they otherwise would have borne in educating their students." In Agostini, the Court made a point of noting that the objects of the aid were "by law supplemental to the regular curricula" and, citing Zobrest, explained that the remedial education services did not relieve the religious schools of costs they would otherwise have borne. 521 U. S., at 228 (citing Zobrest, supra, at 12). The Court explicitly stated that the
17 Our departure from this principle in Regan is not easily explained, but it is an isolated holding surrounded by otherwise unbroken adherence to the no-supplanting principle. Long after Regan we have continued to find the supplement/supplant distinction, like the bar to substantial aid, to be an important consideration. See Zobrest, supra, at 12; Agostini, 521 U. S., at 228; cf. Witters, supra, at 487-488 (discussing rule against "direct subsidy"). The weight that the plurality places on Regan is thus too much for it to bear. See ante, at 815, n. 7. Moreover, the apparent object of the Regan Court's concern was vindicating the principle that aid with fixed secular content was permissible, distinguishing it from the divertible testing aid in Levitt. Regan, 444 U. S., at 661-662 (citing Wolman, supra, at 263); cf. Levitt, 413 U. S., at 480. The plurality provides no explanation for our continued reference to the principle of no-supplanting aid in subsequent cases, such as Zobrest and Agostini, which it finds trustworthy guides elsewhere in its discussion of the First Amendment. See ante, at 822-823, 825, 827, 829-832. Nor does the plurality explain why it places so much weight on Regan's apparent departure from the no-supplanting rule while it ignores Regan's core reasoning that the testing aid there was permissible because, in direct contrast to Levitt, the aid was not divertible.
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