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Aguilar
v. Felton
473
U.S. 402 (1985)
The
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Religious Institutions
Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center which provided the following case commentary taken from Terry Eastland, Religious
Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define
the Debate over Church and State (1993).
In
this pair of cases decided together on July 1, 1985, the
Supreme Court struck down state and federal programs under
which public school teachers were sent into church-related
schools to teach secular subjects. Justice William Brennan
wrote for a sharply divided Court in both cases.
In
the first, the school district of Grand Rapids, Michigan,
adopted two programs in which classes for non-public school
students were financed by the public school system, taught
by teachers hired by the public school system, and conducted
in classrooms in the non-public schools. The Shared Time
program supplemented the core curriculum by providing "remedial"
and "enrichment" courses in reading, art, music, physical
education, and other subjects. The Community Education program
provided instruction in such areas as arts and crafts, home
economics, and Spanish, for both adults and children, after
the regular school day. The Shared Time teachers were full-time
employees, and the Community Education teachers part-time
employees, of the public schools. Virtually all the non-public
schools taking advantage of the programs were religious
in character.
Six
taxpayers sued the school district, charging that the programs
violated the no-establishment provision. The district court
agreed with their complaint, and the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court sustained
that ruling in Grand Rapids School District v. Ball.
In
the second case, Aguilar v. Felton: Title I of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 authorized
the Secretary of Education to fund local educational institutions
so as to meet the needs of educationally deprived children
from low-income families. Since 1966 the city of New York
had used Title I money to provide instructional services
for parochial school students on the premises of their schools.
Students were taught remedial reading, reading skills, remedial
mathematics, and English as a second language. Those administering
the programs were employees of the public schools who had
volunteered to teach in the parochial schools. The city
made teacher assignments, and the teachers were supervised
by field personnel who paid unannounced visits at least
once a month; the program required that the classrooms in
which the instruction took place be cleared of all religious
symbols.
As
in the Grand Rapids case, six taxpayers sued, alleging
that the Title I program as administered by New York was
unconstitutional. The district court granted a summary judgment
in favor of the city, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Second Circuit reversed that decision. The Supreme Court
then affirmed.
In
both cases the same five justices—William Brennan, Thurgood
Marshall, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, and John Paul Stevens
— agreed on the result and the reasoning as articulated
in the opinions of the Court written by Justice Brennan.
Grand Rapids generated four additional opinions,
Aguilar five. Presented here are three opinions from
Grand Rapids and four from Aguilar.
Participating
in both cases were Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Associate
Justices Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood
Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William
H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens, and Byron R. White.
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