708
Souter, J., dissenting
majority's formal criteria were satisfied on the facts, today's conclusion would be profoundly at odds with the Constitution. Proof of this is clear on two levels. The first is circumstantial, in the now discarded symptom of violation, the substantial dimension of the aid. The second is direct, in the defiance of every objective supposed to be served by the bar against establishment.
A
The scale of the aid to religious schools approved today is unprecedented, both in the number of dollars and in the proportion of systemic school expenditure supported. Each measure has received attention in previous cases. On one hand, the sheer quantity of aid, when delivered to a class of religious primary and secondary schools, was suspect on the theory that the greater the aid, the greater its proportion to a religious school's existing expenditures, and the greater the likelihood that public money was supporting religious as well as secular instruction. As we said in Meek, "it would simply ignore reality to attempt to separate secular educational functions from the predominantly religious role" as the object of aid that comes in "substantial amounts." 421 U. S., at 365. Cf. Nyquist, 413 U. S., at 787-788 (rejecting argument that tuition assistance covered only 15% of education costs, presumably secular, at religious schools). Conversely, the more "attenuated [the] financial benefit . . . that eventually flows to parochial schools," the more the Court has been willing to find a form of state aid permissible. Mueller, 463 U. S., at 400.18
18 The majority relies on Mueller, Agostini, and Mitchell to dispute the relevance of the large number of students that use vouchers to attend religious schools, ante, at 658, but the reliance is inapt because each of those cases involved insubstantial benefits to the religious schools, regardless of the number of students that benefited. See, e. g., Mueller, 463 U. S., at 391 ($112 in tax benefit to the highest bracket taxpayer, see Brief for Respondents Becker et al. in Mueller v. Allen, O. T. 1982, No. 82-195, p. 5); Agostini, 521 U. S., at 210 (aid "must 'supplement, and in no case supplant' "); Mitchell, 530 U. S., at 866 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) ("de minimis"). See also supra, at 694-695.
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