Grand Rapids School District offered Shared Time and Community Education Programs that involved the renting of nonpublic school classrooms with public expense to be used to instruct nonpublic school students. Shared Time classes were offered during the regular school day and supplemented the core curriculum. Community Education classes were voluntary and offered after normal school hours. Both types of classes were taught by publicly employed teachers. Taxpayers sued claiming that this program violated the Establishment Clause.
The Court invalidated the programs because they had the primary effect of advancing religion.
| Majority Opinion: (Justice Brennan) |
The programs may advance religion in three ways: (1) the teachers may inadvertently become involved in religious indoctrination (2) the programs may constitute a symbolic link between the government and the religions (3) the programs may serve as a subsidy to the religious schools. The invalidation of these laws is not meant to demonstrate a disfavor with the role of nonpublic schools. Rather the decision is based strictly on applying the Establishment Clause.
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Dissenting Opinion: (Justice O'Connor:)
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The Shared Time program in question is constitutional because it does not "inoculate religion at public expense" and for the reasons advanced in the dissent to Aguilar. 473 U.S. 402
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Dissenting Opinion: (Justice White:)
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The program is constitutional based on the reasoning found in the case decision of Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist. 413 U.S. 756
This decision is another example of the Court's reluctance to allow public employees to act as instructors within nonpublic schools. The impressionability of the young students and the chance of unintentionally adding to their indoctrination is sufficient to invalidate this attempt to offer them additional education.
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Last modified: 02/15/01
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