United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

OCTOBER TERM, 2001

Syllabus

ZELMAN, SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION OF OHIO, ET AL. v.

SIMMONS-HARRIS ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

No.00-1751. Argued February 20, 2002-Decided June 27, 2002*

Ohio's Pilot Project Scholarship Program gives educational choices to families in any Ohio school district that is under state control pursuant to a federal-court order. The program provides tuition aid for certain students in the Cleveland City School District, the only covered district, to attend participating public or private schools of their parent's choosing and tutorial aid for students who choose to remain enrolled in public school. Both religious and nonreligious schools in the district may participate, as may public schools in adjacent school districts. Tuition aid is distributed to parents according to financial need, and where the aid is spent depends solely upon where parents choose to enroll their children. The number of tutorial assistance grants provided to students remaining in public school must equal the number of tuition aid scholarships. In the 1999-2000 school year, 82% of the participating private schools had a religious affiliation, none of the adjacent public schools participated, and 96% of the students participating in the scholarship program were enrolled in religiously affiliated schools. Sixty percent of the students were from families at or below the poverty line. Cleveland schoolchildren also have the option of enrolling in community schools, which are funded under state law but run by their own school boards and receive twice the per-student funding as participating private schools, or magnet schools, which are public schools emphasizing a particular subject area, teaching method, or service, and for which the school district receives the same amount per student as it does for a student enrolled at a traditional public school. Respondents, Ohio taxpayers, sought to enjoin the program on the ground that it violated the Establishment Clause. The Federal District Court granted them summary judgment, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed.

Held: The program does not offend the Establishment Clause.

Pp. 648-663.

*Together with No. 00-1777, Hanna Perkins School et al. v. SimmonsHarris et al., and No. 00-1779, Taylor et al. v. Simmons-Harris et al., also on certiorari to the same court.

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Syllabus

(a) Because the program was enacted for the valid secular purpose of providing educational assistance to poor children in a demonstrably failing public school system, the question is whether the program nonetheless has the forbidden effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. See Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 222-223. This Court's jurisprudence makes clear that a government aid program is not readily subject to challenge under the Establishment Clause if it is neutral with respect to religion and provides assistance directly to a broad class of citizens who, in turn, direct government aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice. See, e. g., Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388. Under such a program, government aid reaches religious institutions only by way of the deliberate choices of numerous individual recipients. The incidental advancement of a religious mission, or the perceived endorsement of a religious message, is reasonably attributable to the individual aid recipients, not the government, whose role ends with the disbursement of benefits. Pp. 648-653.

(b) The instant program is one of true private choice, consistent with the Mueller line of cases, and thus constitutional. It is neutral in all respects toward religion, and is part of Ohio's general and multifaceted undertaking to provide educational opportunities to children in a failed school district. It confers educational assistance directly to a broad class of individuals defined without reference to religion and permits participation of all district schools-religious or nonreligious-and adjacent public schools. The only preference in the program is for lowincome families, who receive greater assistance and have priority for admission. Rather than creating financial incentives that skew it toward religious schools, the program creates financial disincentives: Private schools receive only half the government assistance given to community schools and one-third that given to magnet schools, and adjacent public schools would receive two to three times that given to private schools. Families too have a financial disincentive, for they have to copay a portion of private school tuition, but pay nothing at a community, magnet, or traditional public school. No reasonable observer would think that such a neutral private choice program carries with it the imprimatur of government endorsement. Nor is there evidence that the program fails to provide genuine opportunities for Cleveland parents to select secular educational options: Their children may remain in public school as before, remain in public school with funded tutoring aid, obtain a scholarship and choose to attend a religious school, obtain a scholarship and choose to attend a nonreligious private school, enroll in a community school, or enroll in a magnet school. The Establishment Clause question whether Ohio is coercing parents into sending their children to religious schools must be answered by evaluating all options

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Ohio provides Cleveland schoolchildren, only one of which is to obtain a scholarship and then choose a religious school. Cleveland's preponderance of religiously affiliated schools did not result from the program, but is a phenomenon common to many American cities. Eighty-two percent of Cleveland's private schools are religious, as are 81% of Ohio's private schools. To attribute constitutional significance to the 82% figure would lead to the absurd result that a neutral school-choice program might be permissible in parts of Ohio where the percentage is lower, but not in Cleveland, where Ohio has deemed such programs most sorely needed. Likewise, an identical private choice program might be constitutional only in States with a lower percentage of religious private schools. Respondents' additional argument that constitutional significance should be attached to the fact that 96% of the scholarship recipients have enrolled in religious schools was flatly rejected in Mueller. The constitutionality of a neutral educational aid program simply does not turn on whether and why, in a particular area, at a particular time, most private schools are religious, or most recipients choose to use the aid at a religious school. Finally, contrary to respondents' argument, Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756-a case that expressly reserved judgment on the sort of program challenged here-does not govern neutral educational assistance programs that offer aid directly to a broad class of individuals defined without regard to religion. pp. 653-663.

234 F.3d 945, reversed.

REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. O'CONNOR, J., post, p. 663, and THOMAS, J., post, p. 676, filed concurring opinions. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 684. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined, post, p. 686. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS and SouTER, JJ., joined, post, p. 717.

Judith L. French, Assistant Attorney General of Ohio, argued the cause for petitioners in No. 00-1751. With her on the briefs were Betty D. Montgomery, Attorney General, David M. Gormley, State Solicitor, Karen L. Lazorishak, James G. Tassie, and Robert L. Strayer, Assistant Attorneys General, Kenneth W Starr, and Robert R. Gasaway. David J. Young argued the cause for petitioners in No. 00-1777. With him on the briefs were Michael R. Reed and David

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Counsel

J. Hessler. Clint Bolick, William H. Mellor, Richard D. Komer, Robert Freedman, David Tryon, and Charles Fried filed briefs for petitioners in No. 00-1779.

Solicitor General Olson argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Assistant Attorney General McCallum, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Gregory G. Garre, Robert M. Loeb, and Lowell v: Sturgill, Jr.

Robert H. Chanin argued the cause for respondents Simmons- Harris et al. in all cases. With him on the brief were Andrew D. Roth, Laurence Gold, Steven R. Shapiro, Raymond Vasvari, Elliot M. Mincberg, and Judith E. Schaeffer. Marvin E. Frankel argued the cause for respondents Gatton et al. in all cases. With him on the brief were David J. Strom, Donald J. Mooney, Jr., and Marc D. Stern.t

tBriefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Florida et al. by Robert A. Butterworth, Attorney General of Florida, Thomas E. Warner, Solicitor General, and Matthew J. Conigliaro, Deputy Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, D. Michael Fisher of Pennsylvania, Charles M. Condon of South Carolina, and Randolph A. Beales of Virginia; for the State of Wisconsin by Stephen P. Hurley, Gordon P. Giampietro, and Donald A. Daugherty, Jr.; for Gary E. Johnson, Governor of New Mexico, by Jeffrey S. Bucholtz; for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani et al. by Michael D. Hess, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, Leonard J. Koerner, and Edward F. X. Hart; for Councilwoman Fannie Lewis by Steffen N Johnson, Stephen M. Shapiro, Robert M. Dow, Jr., and Richard P. Hutchison; for the American Education Reform Council by Louis R. Cohen, C. Boyden Gray, and Todd Zubler; for the American Civil Rights Union by Peter J. Ferrara; for the American Center for Law and Justice, Inc., et al. by Jay Alan Sekulow, James M. Henderson, Sr., Colby M. May, Vincent McCarthy, and Walter M. Weber; for the Association of Christian Schools International et al. by Edward McGlynn Gaffney, Jr., and Richard A. Epstein; for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty by Kevin J. Hasson, Eric W Treene, Roman P. Storzer, Anthony R. Picarello, Jr., and Richard Garnett; for the Black Alliance for Educational Options by Samuel Estreicher; for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights by Robert P. George; for the Center for Education Reform et al. by Robert A. Destro

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CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

The State of Ohio has established a pilot program designed to provide educational choices to families with children who

and Joseph E. Schmitz; for the Center for Individual Freedom et al. by Erik S. Jaffe; for Children First America et al. by Harold J. (Tex) Lezar, Jr., and Stephen G. Gilles; for the Christian Legal Society et al. by Stuart J. Lark and Gregory S. Baylor; for the Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence by Edwin Meese III; for the Coalition for Local Sovereignty by Kenneth B. Clark; for the National Association of Independent Schools by Allen G. Siegel; for the National Jewish Commission on Law and Public Affairs by Nathan Lewin, Dennis Rapps, Nathan Diament, and David Zwiebel; for the REACH Alliance by Philip J. Murren; for the Rutherford Institute by John W Whitehead, Steven H. Aden, Robert R. Melnick, and James J. Knicely; for the Solidarity Center for Law and Justice, P. C., by James P. Kelly III; for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops by Mark E. Chopko, John Liekweg, and Jeffrey Hunter Moon; and for Hugh Calkins, pro se.

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Jewish Committee et al. by Howard G. Kristol, Erwin Chemerinsky, Jeffrey P. Sinensky, Kara H. Stein, Arthur H. Bryant, and Victoria W Ni; for the Anti-Defamation League by Martin E. Karlinsky, Daniel J. Beller, Steven M. Freeman, and Frederick M. Lawrence; for the Council on Religious Freedom et al. by Lee Boothby and Alan J. Reinach; for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., et al. by Norman J. Chachkin, Elaine R. Jones, Theodore M. Shaw, James L. Cott, Dennis D. Parker, and Dennis Courtland Hayes; for the National Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty by Geoffrey F. Aronow and Stanley Geller; for the National School Boards Association et al. by Julie K. Underwood, Scott Bales, and James Martin; for the Ohio Association for Public Education and Religious Liberty by Patrick Farrell Timmins, Jr.; and for the Ohio School Boards Association et al. by Kimball H. Carey and Susan

Briefs of amici curiae were filed for the California Alliance for Public Schools by Robin B. Johansen and Joseph Remcho; for Vermonters for Better Education by Michael D. Dean; for John E. Coons et al. by Mr. Coons, pro se, and Stephen D. Sugarman, pro se; for Jesse H. Choper et al. by Mr. Choper, pro se, William Bassett, Teresa Collett, David Forte, Richard Garnett, Lino Graglia, Michael Heise, Gail Heriot, Roderick Hills, Grant Nelson, Michael Perry, David Post, Charles Rice, Rosemary Salomone, Gregory Sisk, Steve Smith, and Harry Tepker; and for Ira J. Paul et al. by Sharon L. Browne.

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reside in the Cleveland City School District. The question presented is whether this program offends the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. We hold that it does not.

There are more than 75,000 children enrolled in the Cleveland City School District. The majority of these children are from low-income and minority families. Few of these families enjoy the means to send their children to any school other than an inner-city public school. For more than a generation, however, Cleveland's public schools have been among the worst performing public schools in the Nation. In 1995, a Federal District Court declared a "crisis of magnitude" and placed the entire Cleveland school district under state control. See Reed v. Rhodes, No. 1:73 CV 1300 (ND Ohio, Mar. 3, 1995). Shortly thereafter, the state auditor found that Cleveland's public schools were in the midst of a "crisis that is perhaps unprecedented in the history of American education." Cleveland City School District Performance Audit 2-1 (Mar. 1996). The district had failed to meet any of the 18 state standards for minimal acceptable performance. Only 1 in 10 ninth graders could pass a basic proficiency examination, and students at all levels performed at a dismal rate compared with students in other Ohio public schools. More than two-thirds of high school students either dropped or failed out before graduation. Of those students who managed to reach their senior year, one of every four still failed to graduate. Of those students who did graduate, few could read, write, or compute at levels comparable to their counterparts in other cities.

It is against this backdrop that Ohio enacted, among other initiatives, its Pilot Project Scholarship Program, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 3313.974-3313.979 (Anderson 1999 and Supp. 2000) (program). The program provides financial assistance to families in any Ohio school district that is or has been "under federal court order requiring supervision and opera-

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tional management of the district by the state superintendent." § 3313.975(A). Cleveland is the only Ohio school district to fall within that category.

The program provides two basic kinds of assistance to parents of children in a covered district. First, the program provides tuition aid for students in kindergarten through third grade, expanding each year through eighth grade, to attend a participating public or private school of their parent's choosing. §§ 3313.975(B) and (C)(l). Second, the program provides tutorial aid for students who choose to remain enrolled in public school. § 3313.975(A).

The tuition aid portion of the program is designed to provide educational choices to parents who reside in a covered district. Any private school, whether religious or nonreligious, may participate in the program and accept program students so long as the school is located within the boundaries of a covered district and meets statewide educational standards. § 313.976(A)(3). Participating private schools must agree not to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or ethnic background, or to "advocate or foster unlawful behavior or teach hatred of any person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion." § 3313.976(A)(6). Any public school located in a school district adjacent to the covered district may also participate in the program. § 3313.976(C). Adjacent public schools are eligible to receive a $2,250 tuition grant for each program student accepted in addition to the full amount of per-pupil state funding attributable to each additional student. §§ 3313.976(C), 3317.03(1)(1).1 All participating schools,

1 Although the parties dispute the precise amount of state funding received by suburban school districts adjacent to the Cleveland City School District, there is no dispute that any suburban district agreeing to participate in the program would receive a $2,250 tuition grant plus the ordinary allotment of per-pupil state funding for each program student enrolled in a suburban public school. See Brief for Respondents Simmons-Harris

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whether public or private, are required to accept students in accordance with rules and procedures established by the state superintendent. §§ 3313.977(A)(1)(a)-(c).

Tuition aid is distributed to parents according to financial need. Families with incomes below 200% of the poverty line are given priority and are eligible to receive 90% of private school tuition up to $2,250. §§ 3313.978(A) and (C)(l). For these lowest income families, participating private schools may not charge a parental copayment greater than $250. § 3313.976(A)(8). For all other families, the program pays 75% of tuition costs, up to $1,875, with no copayment cap. §§ 3313.976(A)(8), 3313.978(A). These families receive tuition aid only if the number of available scholarships exceeds the number of low-income children who choose to participate.2 Where tuition aid is spent depends solely upon where parents who receive tuition aid choose to enroll their child. If parents choose a private school, checks are made payable to the parents who then endorse the checks over to the chosen school. § 3313.979.

The tutorial aid portion of the program provides tutorial assistance through grants to any student in a covered district who chooses to remain in public school. Parents arrange for registered tutors to provide assistance to their children and then submit bills for those services to the State for payment. §§ 3313.976(D), 3313.979(C). Students from low-income families receive 90% of the amount charged for such assistance up to $360. All other students receive 75% of that amount. § 3313.978(B). The number of tutorial assistance grants offered to students in a covered district must equal the number of tuition aid scholarships provided to stu-

et al. 30, n. 11 (suburban schools would receive "on average, approximately, $4,750" per program student); Brief for Petitioners in No. 00-1779, p. 39 (suburban schools would receive "about $6,544" per program student).

2 The number of available scholarships per covered district is determined annually by the Ohio Superintendent for Public Instruction. §§ 3313.978(A)-(B).

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dents enrolled at participating private or adjacent public schools. § 3313.975(A).

The program has been in operation within the Cleveland City School District since the 1996-1997 school year. In the 1999-2000 school year, 56 private schools participated in the program, 46 (or 82%) of which had a religious affiliation. None of the public schools in districts adjacent to Cleveland have elected to participate. More than 3,700 students participated in the scholarship program, most of whom (96%) enrolled in religiously affiliated schools. Sixty percent of these students were from families at or below the poverty line. In the 1998-1999 school year, approximately 1,400 Cleveland public school students received tutorial aid. This number was expected to double during the 1999-2000 school year.

The program is part of a broader undertaking by the State to enhance the educational options of Cleveland's schoolchildren in response to the 1995 takeover. That undertaking includes programs governing community and magnet schools. Community schools are funded under state law but are run by their own school boards, not by local school districts. §§ 3314.01(B), 3314.04. These schools enjoy academic independence to hire their own teachers and to determine their own curriculum. They can have no religious affiliation and are required to accept students by lottery. During the 1999-2000 school year, there were 10 startup community schools in the Cleveland City School District with more than 1,900 students enrolled. For each child enrolled in a community school, the school receives state funding of $4,518, twice the funding a participating program school may receive.

Magnet schools are public schools operated by a local school board that emphasize a particular subject area, teaching method, or service to students. For each student enrolled in a magnet school, the school district receives $7,746, including state funding of $4,167, the same amount received

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per student enrolled at a traditional public school. As of 1999, parents in Cleveland were able to choose from among 23 magnet schools, which together enrolled more than 13,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. These schools provide specialized teaching methods, such as Montessori, or a particularized curriculum focus, such as foreign language, computers, or the arts.

In 1996, respondents, a group of Ohio taxpayers, challenged the Ohio program in state court on state and federal grounds. The Ohio Supreme Court rejected respondents' federal claims, but held that the enactment of the program violated certain procedural requirements of the Ohio Constitution. Simmons-Harris v. Goff, 86 Ohio St. 3d 1, 8-9, 711 N. E. 2d 203, 211 (1999). The state legislature immediately cured this defect, leaving the basic provisions discussed above intact.

In July 1999, respondents filed this action in United States District Court, seeking to enjoin the reenacted program on the ground that it violated the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. In August 1999, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction barring further implementation of the program, 54 F. Supp. 2d 725 (ND Ohio), which we stayed pending review by the Court of Appeals, 528 U. S. 983 (1999). In December 1999, the District Court granted summary judgment for respondents. 72 F. Supp. 2d 834. In December 2000, a divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court, finding that the program had the "primary effect" of advancing religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. 234 F.3d 945 (CA6). The Court of Appeals stayed its mandate pending disposition in this Court. App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 00-1779, p. 151. We granted certiorari, 533 U. S. 976 (2001), and now reverse the Court of Appeals.

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, prevents a State from enacting laws that have the "purpose"

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or "effect" of advancing or inhibiting religion. Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 222-223 (1997) ("[WJe continue to ask whether the government acted with the purpose of advancing or inhibiting religion [and] whether the aid has the 'effect' of advancing or inhibiting religion" (citations omitted)). There is no dispute that the program challenged here was enacted for the valid secular purpose of providing educational assistance to poor children in a demonstrably failing public school system. Thus, the question presented is whether the Ohio program nonetheless has the forbidden "effect" of advancing or inhibiting religion.

To answer that question, our decisions have drawn a consistent distinction between government programs that provide aid directly to religious schools, Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U. S. 793, 810-814 (2000) (plurality opinion); id., at 841-844 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment); Agostini, supra, at 225-227; Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 842 (1995) (collecting cases), and programs of true private choice, in which government aid reaches religious schools only as a result of the genuine and independent choices of private individuals, Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388 (1983); Witters v. Washington Dept. of Servs. for Blind, 474 U. S. 481 (1986); Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School Dist., 509 U. S. 1 (1993). While our jurisprudence with respect to the constitutionality of direct aid programs has "changed significantly" over the past two decades, Agostini, supra, at 236, our jurisprudence with respect to true private choice programs has remained consistent and unbroken. Three times we have confronted Establishment Clause challenges to neutral government programs that provide aid directly to a broad class of individuals, who, in turn, direct the aid to religious schools or institutions of their own choosing. Three times we have rejected such challenges.

In Mueller, we rejected an Establishment Clause challenge to a Minnesota program authorizing tax deductions for various educational expenses, including private school tu-

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ition costs, even though the great majority of the program's beneficiaries (96%) were parents of children in religious schools. We began by focusing on the class of beneficiaries, finding that because the class included "all parents," including parents with "children [who] attend nonsectarian private schools or sectarian private schools," 463 U. S., at 397 (emphasis in original), the program was "not readily subject to challenge under the Establishment Clause," id., at 399 (citing Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263, 274 (1981) ("The provision of benefits to so broad a spectrum of groups is an important index of secular effect")). Then, viewing the program as a whole, we emphasized the principle of private choice, noting that public funds were made available to religious schools "only as a result of numerous, private choices of individual parents of school-age children." 463 U. S., at 399-400. This, we said, ensured that "no 'imprimatur of state approval' can be deemed to have been conferred on any particular religion, or on religion generally." Id., at 399 (quoting Widmar, supra, at 274)). We thus found it irrelevant to the constitutional inquiry that the vast majority of beneficiaries were parents of children in religious schools, saying:

"We would be loath to adopt a rule grounding the constitutionality of a facially neutral law on annual reports reciting the extent to which various classes of private citizens claimed benefits under the law." 463 U. S., at 401.

That the program was one of true private choice, with no evidence that the State deliberately skewed incentives toward religious schools, was sufficient for the program to survive scrutiny under the Establishment Clause.

In Witters, we used identical reasoning to reject an Establishment Clause challenge to a vocational scholarship program that provided tuition aid to a student studying at a religious institution to become a pastor. Looking at the program as a whole, we observed that "[a]ny aid ... that ulti-

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mately flows to religious institutions does so only as a result of the genuinely independent and private choices of aid recipients." 474 U. S., at 487. We further remarked that, as in Mueller, "[the] program is made available generally without regard to the sectarian-nonsectarian, or public-nonpublic nature of the institution benefited." 474 U. S., at 487 (internal quotation marks omitted). In light of these factors, we held that the program was not inconsistent with the Establishment Clause. Id., at 488-489.

Five Members of the Court, in separate opinions, emphasized the general rule from Mueller that the amount of government aid channeled to religious institutions by individual aid recipients was not relevant to the constitutional inquiry. 474 U. S., at 490-491 (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and REHNQUIST, J., concurring) (citing Mueller, supra, at 398399); 474 U. S., at 493 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); id., at 490 (White, J., concurring). Our holding thus rested not on whether few or many recipients chose to expend government aid at a religious school but, rather, on whether recipients generally were empowered to direct the aid to schools or institutions of their own choosing.

Finally, in Zobrest, we applied Mueller and Witters to reject an Establishment Clause challenge to a federal program that permitted sign-language interpreters to assist deaf children enrolled in religious schools. Reviewing our earlier decisions, we stated that "government programs that neutrally provide benefits to a broad class of citizens defined without reference to religion are not readily subject to an Establishment Clause challenge." 509 U. S., at 8. Looking once again to the challenged program as a whole, we observed that the program "distributes benefits neutrally to any child qualifying as 'disabled.'" Id., at 10. Its "primary beneficiaries," we said, were "disabled children, not sectarian schools." Id., at 12.

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We further observed that "[b]y according parents freedom to select a school of their choice, the statute ensures that a government-paid interpreter will be present in a sectarian school only as a result of the private decision of individual parents." Id., at 10. Our focus again was on neutrality and the principle of private choice, not on the number of program beneficiaries attending religious schools. Id., at 10-11. See, e. g., Agostini, 521 U. S., at 229 ("Zobrest did not turn on the fact that James Zobrest had, at the time of litigation, been the only child using a publicly funded sign-language interpreter to attend a parochial school"). Because the program ensured that parents were the ones to select a religious school as the best learning environment for their handicapped child, the circuit between government and religion was broken, and the Establishment Clause was not implicated.

Mueller, Witters, and Zobrest thus make clear that where a government aid program is neutral with respect to religion, and provides assistance directly to a broad class of citizens who, in turn, direct government aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their own genuine and independent private choice, the program is not readily subject to challenge under the Establishment Clause. A program that shares these features permits government aid to reach religious institutions only by way of the deliberate choices of numerous individual recipients. The incidental advancement of a religious mission, or the perceived endorsement of a religious message, is reasonably attributable to the individual recipient, not to the government, whose role ends with the disbursement of benefits. As a plurality of this Court recentlyobserved:

"[I]f numerous private choices, rather than the single choice of a government, determine the distribution of aid, pursuant to neutral eligibility criteria, then a government cannot, or at least cannot easily, grant special

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favors that might lead to a religious establishment." Mitchell, 530 U. S., at 810.

See also id., at 843 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment) ("[W]hen government aid supports a school's religious mission only because of independent decisions made by numerous individuals to guide their secular aid to that school, 'no reasonable observer is likely to draw from the facts ... an inference that the State itself is endorsing a religious practice or belief'" (quoting Witters, 474 U. S., at 493 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment))). It is precisely for these reasons that we have never found a program of true private choice to offend the Establishment Clause.

We believe that the program challenged here is a program of true private choice, consistent with Mueller, Witters, and Zobrest, and thus constitutional. As was true in those cases, the Ohio program is neutral in all respects toward religion. It is part of a general and multifaceted undertaking by the State of Ohio to provide educational opportunities to the children of a failed school district. It confers educational assistance directly to a broad class of individuals defined without reference to religion, i. e., any parent of a school-age child who resides in the Cleveland City School District. The program permits the participation of all schools within the district, religious or nonreligious. Adjacent public schools also may participate and have a financial incentive to do so. Program benefits are available to participating families on neutral terms, with no reference to religion. The only preference stated anywhere in the program is a preference for low-income families, who receive greater assistance and are given priority for admission at participating schools.

There are no "financial incentive[s]" that "ske[w]" the program toward religious schools. Witters, supra, at 487-488. Such incentives "[are] not present ... where the aid is allocated on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion, and is made available to both reli-

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gious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis." Agostini, supra, at 231. The program here in fact creates financial disincentives for religious schools, with private schools receiving only half the government assistance given to community schools and one-third the assistance given to magnet schools. Adjacent public schools, should any choose to accept program students, are also eligible to receive two to three times the state funding of a private religious school. Families too have a financial disincentive to choose a private religious school over other schools. Parents that choose to participate in the scholarship program and then to enroll their children in a private school (religious or nonreligious) must copay a portion of the school's tuition. Families that choose a community school, magnet school, or traditional public school pay nothing. Although such features of the program are not necessary to its constitutionality, they clearly dispel the claim that the program "creates ... financial incentive[s] for parents to choose a sectarian school." Zobrest, 509 U. S., at 10.3

Respondents suggest that even without a financial incentive for parents to choose a religious school, the program creates a "public perception that the State is endorsing religious practices and beliefs." Brief for Respondents Simmons-Harris et al. 37-38. But we have repeatedly rec-

3 JUSTICE SOUTER suggests the program is not "neutral" because program students cannot spend scholarship vouchers at traditional public schools. Post, at 697-698 (dissenting opinion). This objection is mistaken: Public schools in Cleveland already receive $7,097 in public funding per pupil-$4,167 of which is attributable to the State. App. 56a. Program students who receive tutoring aid and remain enrolled in traditional public schools therefore direct almost twice as much state funding to their chosen school as do program students who receive a scholarship and attend a private school. Ibid. JUSTICE SOUTER does not seriously claim that the program differentiates based on the religious status of beneficiaries or providers of services, the touchstone of neutrality under the Establishment Clause. Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U. S. 793, 809 (2000) (plurality opinion); id., at 838 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment).

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ognized that no reasonable observer would think a neutral program of private choice, where state aid reaches religious schools solely as a result of the numerous independent decisions of private individuals, carries with it the imprimatur of government endorsement. Mueller, 463 U. S., at 399; Witters, supra, at 488-489; Zobrest, supra, at 10-11; e. g., Mitchell, supra, at 842-843 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment) ("In terms of public perception, a government program of direct aid to religious schools ... differs meaningfully from the government distributing aid directly to individual students who, in turn, decide to use the aid at the same religious schools"). The argument is particularly misplaced here since "the reasonable observer in the endorsement inquiry must be deemed aware" of the "history and context" underlying a challenged program. Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U. S. 98, 119 (2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Capitol Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, 515 U. S. 753, 780 (1995) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Any objective observer familiar with the full history and context of the Ohio program would reasonably view it as one aspect of a broader undertaking to assist poor children in failed schools, not as an endorsement of religious schooling in general.

There also is no evidence that the program fails to provide genuine opportunities for Cleveland parents to select secular educational options for their school-age children. Cleveland schoolchildren enjoy a range of educational choices: They may remain in public school as before, remain in public school with publicly funded tutoring aid, obtain a scholarship and choose a religious school, obtain a scholarship and choose a nonreligious private school, enroll in a community school, or enroll in a magnet school. That 46 of the 56 private schools now participating in the program are religious schools does not condemn it as a violation of the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause question is whether Ohio is coerc-

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ing parents into sending their children to religious schools, and that question must be answered by evaluating all options Ohio provides Cleveland schoolchildren, only one of which is to obtain a program scholarship and then choose a religious school.

JUSTICE SOUTER speculates that because more private religious schools currently participate in the program, the program itself must somehow discourage the participation of private nonreligious schools. Post, at 703-705 (dissenting opinion).4 But Cleveland's preponderance of religiously af-

4JUSTICE SOUTER appears to base this claim on the unfounded assumption that capping the amount of tuition charged to low-income students (at $2,500) favors participation by religious schools. Post, at 704-705 (dissenting opinion). But elsewhere he claims that the program spends too much money on private schools and chides the state legislature for even proposing to raise the scholarship amount for low-income recipients. Post, at 697-698, 710-711, 714-715. His assumption also finds no support in the record, which shows that nonreligious private schools operating in Cleveland also seek and receive substantial third-party contributions. App. 194a-195a; App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 00-1777, p. 119a. Indeed, the actual operation of the program refutes JUSTICE SOUTER'S argument that few but religious schools can afford to participate: Ten secular private schools operated within the Cleveland City School District when the program was adopted. Reply Brieffor Petitioners in No. 00-1777, p. 4 (citing Ohio Educational Directory, 1999-2000 School Year, Alphabetic List of Nonpublic Schools, Ohio Dept. of Ed.). All 10 chose to participate in the program and have continued to participate to this day. App. 281a- 286a. And while no religious schools have been created in response to the program, several nonreligious schools have been created, id., at 144a-148a, 224a-225a, in spite of the fact that a principal barrier to entry of new private schools is the uncertainty caused by protracted litigation which has plagued the program since its inception, post, at 672 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring) (citing App. 225a, 227a). See also 234 F.3d 945, 970 (CA6 2000) (Ryan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("There is not a scintilla of evidence in this case that any school, public or private, has been discouraged from participating in the school voucher program because it cannot 'afford' to do so"). Similarly mistaken is JUSTICE SOUTER'S reliance on the low enrollment of scholarship students in nonreligious schools

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filiated private schools certainly did not arise as a result of the program; it is a phenomenon common to many American cities. See U. S. Dept. of Ed., National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey: 1999-2000, pp. 2-4 (NCES 2001-330, 2001) (hereinafter Private School Universe Survey) (cited in Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 24). Indeed, by all accounts the program has captured a remarkable cross-section of private schools, religious and nonreligious. It is true that 82% of Cleveland's participating private schools are religious schools, but it is also true that 81% of private schools in Ohio are religious schools. See Brief for State of Florida et al. as Amici Curiae 16 (citing Private School Universe Survey). To attribute constitutional significance to this figure, moreover, would lead to the absurd result that a neutral school-choice program might be permissible in some parts of Ohio, such as Columbus, where a lower percentage of private schools are religious schools, see Ohio Educational Directory (Lodging of Respondents Gatton et al., available in Clerk of Court's case file), and Reply Brief for Petitioners in No. 00-1751, p. 12, n. 1, but not in inner-city Cleveland, where Ohio has deemed such programs most sorely needed, but where the preponderance of religious schools happens to be greater. Cf. Brief for State of Florida et al. as Amici Curiae 17 ("[T]he percentages of sectarian to nonsectarian private schools within Florida's 67 school districts ... vary from zero to 100 percent"). Likewise, an identical private choice program might be constitutional in some States, such as Maine or Utah, where less

during the 1999-2000 school year. Post, at 704 (citing Brief for California Alliance for Public Schools as Amicus Curiae 15). These figures ignore the fact that the number of program students enrolled in nonreligious schools has widely varied from year to year, infra, at 659; e. g., n. 5, infra, underscoring why the constitutionality of a neutral choice program does not turn on annual tallies of private decisions made in any given year by thousands of individual aid recipients, infra, at 659 (citing Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 401 (1983)).

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than 45% of private schools are religious schools, but not in other States, such as Nebraska or Kansas, where over 90% of private schools are religious schools. Id., at 15-16 (citing Private School Universe Survey).

Respondents and JUSTICE SOUTER claim that even if we do not focus on the number of participating schools that are religious schools, we should attach constitutional significance to the fact that 96% of scholarship recipients have enrolled in religious schools. They claim that this alone proves parents lack genuine choice, even if no parent has ever said so. We need not consider this argument in detail, since it was flatly rejected in Mueller, where we found it irrelevant that 96% of parents taking deductions for tuition expenses paid tuition at religious schools. Indeed, we have recently found it irrelevant even to the constitutionality of a direct aid program that a vast majority of program benefits went to religious schools. See Agostini, 521 U. S., at 229 ("Nor are we willing to conclude that the constitutionality of an aid program depends on the number of sectarian school students who happen to receive the otherwise neutral aid" (citing Mueller, 463 U. S., at 401)); see also Mitchell, 530 U. S., at 812, n. 6 (plurality opinion) ("[Agostini] held that the proportion of aid benefiting students at religious schools pursuant to a neutral program involving private choices was irrelevant to the constitutional inquiry"); id., at 848 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment) (same) (quoting Agostini, supra, at 229). The constitutionality of a neutral educational aid program simply does not turn on whether and why, in a particular area, at a particular time, most private schools are run by religious organizations, or most recipients choose to use the aid at a religious school. As we said in Mueller, "[s]uch an approach would scarcely provide the certainty that this field stands in need of, nor can we perceive principled standards by which such statistical evidence might be evaluated." 463 U. S., at 401.

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This point is aptly illustrated here. The 96% figure upon which respondents and JUSTICE SOUTER rely discounts entirely (1) the more than 1,900 Cleveland children enrolled in alternative community schools, (2) the more than 13,000 children enrolled in alternative magnet schools, and (3) the more than 1,400 children enrolled in traditional public schools with tutorial assistance. See supra, at 647-648. Including some or all of these children in the denominator of children enrolled in nontraditional schools during the 19992000 school year drops the percentage enrolled in religious schools from 96% to under 20%. See also J. Greene, The Racial, Economic, and Religious Context of Parental Choice in Cleveland 11, Table 4 (Oct. 8, 1999), App. 217a (reporting that only 16.5% of nontraditional schoolchildren in Cleveland choose religious schools). The 96% figure also represents but a snapshot of one particular school year. In the 19971998 school year, by contrast, only 78% of scholarship recipients attended religious schools. See App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 00-1751, p. 5a. The difference was attributable to two private nonreligious schools that had accepted 15% of all scholarship students electing instead to register as community schools, in light of larger per-pupil funding for community schools and the uncertain future of the scholarship program generated by this litigation. See App. 59a-62a, 209a, 223a-227a.5 Many of the students enrolled in these schools

5 The fluctuations seen in the Cleveland program are hardly atypical.

Experience in Milwaukee, which since 1991 has operated an educational choice program similar to the Ohio program, demonstrates that the mix of participating schools fluctuates significantly from year to year based on a number of factors, one of which is the uncertainty caused by persistent litigation. See App. 218a, 229a-236a; Brieffor State of Wisconsin as Amicus Curiae 10-13 (hereinafter Brieffor Wisconsin) (citing Wisconsin Dept. of Public Instruction, Milwaukee Parental Choice Program Facts and Figures for 2001-2002). Since the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared the Milwaukee program constitutional in 1998, Jackson v. Benson, 218 Wis. 2d 835, 578 N. W. 2d 602, several nonreligious private schools have entered the Milwaukee market, and now represent 32% of all participating

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as scholarship students remained enrolled as community school students, id., at 145a-146a, thus demonstrating the arbitrariness of counting one type of school but not the other to assess primary effect, e. g., Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3314.11 (Anderson 1999) (establishing a single "office of school options" to "provide services that facilitate the management of the community schools program and the pilot project scholarship program"). In spite of repeated questioning from the Court at oral argument, respondents offered no convincing justification for their approach, which relies entirely on such arbitrary classifications. Tr. of Oral Arg. 52-60.6

schools. Brief for Wisconsin 11-12. Similarly, the number of program students attending nonreligious private schools increased from 2,048 to 3,582; these students now represent 33% of all program students. Id., at 12-13. There are currently 34 nonreligious private schools participating in the Milwaukee program, a nearly five-fold increase from the 7 nonreligious schools that participated when the program began in 1990. See App. 218a; Brief for Wisconsin 12. And the total number of students enrolled in nonreligious schools has grown from 337 when the program began to 3,582 in the most recent school year. See App. 218a, 234a-236a; Brief for Wisconsin 12-13. These numbers further demonstrate the wisdom of our refusal in Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S., at 401, to make the constitutionality of such a program depend on "annual reports reciting the extent to which various classes of private citizens claimed benefits under the law."

6 JUSTICE SOUTER and JUSTICE STEVENS claim that community schools and magnet schools are separate and distinct from program schools, simply because the program itself does not include community and magnet school options. Post, at 698-701 (SOUTER, J., dissenting); post, at 685 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). But none of the dissenting opinions explain how there is any perceptible difference between scholarship schools, community schools, or magnet schools from the perspective of Cleveland parents looking to choose the best educational option for their school-age children. Parents who choose a program school in fact receive from the State precisely what parents who choose a community or magnet school receivethe opportunity to send their children largely at state expense to schools they prefer to their local public school. See, e. g., App. 147a, 168a-169a; App. in Nos. 00-3055, etc. (CA6), pp. 1635-1645 and 1657-1673 (Cleveland parents who enroll their children in schools other than local public schools typically explore all state-funded options before choosing an alternative school).

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Respondents finally claim that we should look to Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756 (1973), to decide these cases. We disagree for two reasons. First, the program in Nyquist was quite different from the program challenged here. Nyquist involved a New York program that gave a package of benefits exclusively to private schools and the parents of private school enrollees. Although the program was enacted for ostensibly secular purposes, id., at 773-774, we found that its "function" was "unmistakably to provide desired financial support for nonpublic, sectarian institutions," id., at 783 (emphasis added). Its genesis, we said, was that private religious schools faced "increasingly grave fiscal problems." Id., at 795. The program thus provided direct money grants to religious schools. Id., at 762-764. It provided tax benefits "unrelated to the amount of money actually expended by any parent on tuition," ensuring a windfall to parents of children in religious schools. Id., at 790. It similarly provided tuition reimbursements designed explicitly to "offe[r] ... an incentive to parents to send their children to sectarian schools." Id., at 786. Indeed, the program flatly prohibited the participation of any public school, or parent of any public school enrollee. Id., at 763-765. Ohio's program shares none of these features.

Second, were there any doubt that the program challenged in Nyquist is far removed from the program challenged here, we expressly reserved judgment with respect to "a case involving some form of public assistance (e. g., scholarships) made available generally without regard to the sectariannonsectarian, or public-nonpublic nature of the institution benefited." Id., at 782-783, n. 38. That, of course, is the very question now before us, and it has since been answered, first in Mueller, 463 U. S., at 398-399 ("[A] program ... that neutrally provides state assistance to a broad spectrum of citizens is not readily subject to challenge under the Establishment Clause" (citing Nyquist, supra, at 782-783, n. 38)),

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then in Witters, 474 U. S., at 487 ("Washington's program is 'made available generally without regard to the sectariannonsectarian, or public-nonpublic nature of the institution benefited'" (quoting Nyquist, supra, at 782-783, n. 38)), and again in Zobrest, 509 U. S., at 12-13 ("[T]he function of the [program] is hardly 'to provide desired financial support for nonpublic, sectarian institutions'" (quoting Nyquist, supra, at 782-783, n. 38)). To the extent the scope of Nyquist has remained an open question in light of these later decisions, we now hold that Nyquist does not govern neutral educational assistance programs that, like the program here, offer aid directly to a broad class of individual recipients defined without regard to religion.7

In sum, the Ohio program is entirely neutral with respect to religion. It provides benefits directly to a wide spectrum of individuals, defined only by financial need and residence in a particular school district. It permits such individuals to exercise genuine choice among options public and private, secular and religious. The program is therefore a program of true private choice. In keeping with an unbroken line of

7 JUSTICE BREYER would raise the invisible specters of "divisiveness" and "religious strife" to find the program unconstitutional. Post, at 719, 725-728 (dissenting opinion). It is unclear exactly what sort of principle JUSTICE BREYER has in mind, considering that the program has ignited no "divisiveness" or "strife" other than this litigation. Nor is it clear where JUSTICE BREYER would locate this presumed authority to deprive Cleveland residents of a program that they have chosen but that we subjectively find "divisive." We quite rightly have rejected the claim that some speculative potential for divisiveness bears on the constitutionality of educational aid programs. Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U. S., at 825 (plurality opinion) ("The dissent resurrects the concern for political divisiveness that once occupied the Court but that post-Aguilar cases have rightly disregarded") (citing cases); id., at 825-826 (" 'It is curious indeed to base our interpretation of the Constitution on speculation as to the likelihood of a phenomenon which the parties may create merely by prosecuting a lawsuit'" (quoting Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U. S. 402, 429 (1985) (O'CONNOR, J., dissenting))).

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decisions rejecting challenges to similar programs, we hold that the program does not offend the Establishment Clause.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

JUSTICE O'CONNOR, concurring.

The Court holds that Ohio's Pilot Project Scholarship Program, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 3313.974-3313.979 (Anderson 1999 and Supp. 2000) (voucher program), survives respondents' Establishment Clause challenge. While I join the Court's opinion, I write separately for two reasons. First, although the Court takes an important step, I do not believe that today's decision, when considered in light of other longstanding government programs that impact religious organizations and our prior Establishment Clause jurisprudence, marks a dramatic break from the past. Second, given the emphasis the Court places on verifying that parents of voucher students in religious schools have exercised "true private choice," I think it is worth elaborating on the Court's conclusion that this inquiry should consider all reasonable educational alternatives to religious schools that are available to parents. To do otherwise is to ignore how the educational system in Cleveland actually functions.

I

These cases are different from prior indirect aid cases in part because a significant portion of the funds appropriated for the voucher program reach religious schools without restrictions on the use of these funds. The share of public resources that reach religious schools is not, however, as significant as respondents suggest. See, e. g., Brief for Respondents Simmons-Harris et al. 1-2. Data from the 1999-2000 school year indicate that 82 percent of schools participating in the voucher program were religious and that 96 percent of participating students enrolled in religious

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schools, see App. in Nos. 00-3055, etc. (CA6), p. 1679 (46 of 56 private schools in the program are religiously affiliated; 3,637 of 3,765 voucher students attend religious private schools), but these data are incomplete. These statistics do not take into account all of the reasonable educational choices that may be available to students in Cleveland public schools. When one considers the option to attend community schools, the percentage of students enrolled in religious schools falls to 62.1 percent. If magnet schools are included in the mix, this percentage falls to 16.5 percent. See J. Greene, The Racial, Economic, and Religious Context of Parental Choice in Cleveland 11, Table 4 (Oct. 8, 1999), App. 217a (reporting 2,087 students in community schools and 16,184 students in magnet schools).

Even these numbers do not paint a complete picture. The Cleveland program provides voucher applicants from lowincome families with up to $2,250 in tuition assistance and provides the remaining applicants with up to $1,875 in tuition assistance. §§ 3313.976(A)(8), 3313.978(A) and (C)(l). In contrast, the State provides community schools $4,518 per pupil and magnet schools, on average, $7,097 per pupil. Affidavit of Caroline M. Hoxby ~~ 4b, 4c, App. 56a. Even if one assumes that all voucher students came from low-income families and that each voucher student used up the entire $2,250 voucher, at most $8.2 million of public funds flowed to religious schools under the voucher program in 1999-2000. Although just over one-half as many students attended community schools as religious private schools on the state fisc, the State spent over $1 million more-$9.4 million-on students in community schools than on students in religious private schools because per-pupil aid to community schools is more than double the per-pupil aid to private schools under the voucher program. Moreover, the amount spent on religious private schools is minor compared to the $114.8 million the State spent on students in the Cleveland magnet schools.

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Although $8.2 million is no small sum, it pales in comparison to the amount of funds that federal, state, and local governments already provide religious institutions. Religious organizations may qualify for exemptions from the federal corporate income tax, see 26 U. S. C. § 501(c)(3); the corporate income tax in many States, see, e. g., Cal. Rev. & Tax. Code Ann. § 23701d (West 1992); and property taxes in all 50 States, see Turner, Property Tax Exemptions for Nonprofits, 12 Probate & Property 25 (Sept.lOct. 1998); and clergy qualify for a federal tax break on income used for housing expenses, 26 U. S. C. § 1402(a)(8). In addition, the Federal Government provides individuals, corporations, trusts, and estates a tax deduction for charitable contributions to qualified religious groups. See §§ 170, 642(c). Finally, the Federal Government and certain state governments provide tax credits for educational expenses, many of which are spent on education at religious schools. See, e. g., § 25A (Hope tax credit); Minn. Stat. § 290.0674 (Supp. 2001).

Most of these tax policies are well established, see, e. g., Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388 (1983) (upholding Minnesota tax deduction for educational expenses); Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664 (1970) (upholding an exemption for religious organizations from New York property tax), yet confer a significant relative benefit on religious institutions. The state property tax exemptions for religious institutions alone amount to very large sums annually. For example, available data suggest that Colorado's exemption lowers that State's tax revenues by more than $40 million annually, see Rabey, Exemptions a Matter of Faith: No Proof Required of Tax-Free Churches, Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, Oct. 26, 1992, p. B1; Colorado Debates Church, Nonprofit Tax-Exempt Status, Philadelphia Enquirer, Oct. 4, 1996, p. 8; Maryland's exemption lowers revenues by more than $60 million, see Maryland Dept. of Assessment and Taxation, 2001 SDAT Annual Report (Apr. 25, 2002), http://www.dat.state.md.us/sdatweb/stats/

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01acrpt.html (Internet sources available in Clerk of Court's case file); Wisconsin's exemption lowers revenues by approximately $122 million, see Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue, Division of Research and Analysis, Summary of Tax Exemption Devices 2001, Property Tax (Apr. 25, 2002), http://www.dor. state.wi.us/ra/sumOOpro.html ($5.688 billion in exempt religious property; statewide average property tax rate of $21.46 per $1,000 of property); and Louisiana's exemption, looking just at the city of New Orleans, lowers revenues by over $36 million, see Bureau of Governmental Research, Property Tax Exemptions and Assessment Administration in Orleans Parish: Summary and Recommendations 2 (Dec. 1999) ($22.6 million for houses of worship and $14.1 million for religious schools). As for the Federal Government, the tax deduction for charitable contributions reduces federal tax revenues by nearly $25 billion annually, see U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 344 (2000) (hereinafter Statistical Abstract), and it is reported that over 60 percent of household charitable contributions go to religious charities, id., at 397. Even the relatively minor exemptions lower federal tax receipts by substantial amounts. The parsonage exemption, for example, lowers revenues by around $500 million. See Diaz, Ramstad Prepares Bill to Retain Tax Break for Clergy's Housing, Star Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul), Mar. 30,2002, p.4A.

These tax exemptions, which have "much the same effect as [cash grants] ... of the amount of tax [avoided]," Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash., 461 U. S. 540, 544 (1983); see also Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 859-860, esp. n. 4 (1995) (THOMAS, J., concurring), are just part of the picture. Federal dollars also reach religiously affiliated organizations through public health programs such as Medicare, 42 U. S. C. §§ 13951395ggg, and Medicaid, § 1396 et seq., through educational programs such as the Pell Grant program, 20 U. S. C. § 1070a, and the G. 1. Bill of Rights, 38 U. S. C. §§ 3451, 3698; and

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through childcare programs such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant Program (CCDBG), 42 U. S. C. § 9858 (1994 ed., Supp. V). Medicare and Medicaid provide federal funds to pay for the healthcare of the elderly and the poor, respectively, see 1 B. Furrow, T. Greaney, S. Johnson, T. Jost, & R. Schwartz, Health Law 545-546 (2d ed. 2000); 2 id., at 2; the Pell Grant program and the G. 1. Bill subsidize higher education of low-income individuals and veterans, respectively, see Mulleneaux, The Failure to Provide Adequate Higher Education Tax Incentives for Lower-Income Individuals, 14 Akron Tax J. 27, 31 (1999); and the CCDBG program finances child care for low-income parents, see Pitegoff, Child Care Policy and the Welfare Reform Act, 6 J. Affordable Housing & Community Dev. L. 113, 121-122 (1997). These programs are well-established parts of our social welfare system, see, e. g., Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 782-783, n. 38 (1973), and can be quite substantial, see Statistical Abstract 92 (Table 120) ($211.4 billion spent on Medicare and nearly $176.9 billion on Medicaid in 1998), id., at 135 (Table 208) ($9.1 billion in financial aid provided by the Department of Education and $280.5 million by the Department of Defense in 1999); Bush On Welfare: Tougher Work Rules, More State Control, Congress Daily, Feb. 26, 2002, p. 8 ($4.8 billion for the CCDBG program in 2001).

A significant portion of the funds appropriated for these programs reach religiously affiliated institutions, typically without restrictions on its subsequent use. For example, it has been reported that religious hospitals, which account for 18 percent of all hospital beds nationwide, rely on Medicare funds for 36 percent of their revenue. MergerWatch, New Study Details Public Funding of Religious Hospitals (Jan. 2002), http://www.mergerwatch.org/inthenews/ publicfunding.html. Moreover, taking into account both Medicare and Medicaid, religious hospitals received nearly $45 billion from the federal fisc in 1998. Ibid. Federal aid

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to religious schools is also substantial. Although data for all States are not available, data from Minnesota, for example, suggest that a substantial share of Pell Grant and other federal funds for college tuition reach religious schools. Roughly one-third or $27.1 million of the federal tuition dollars spent on students at schools in Minnesota were used at private 4-year colleges. Minnesota Higher Education Services Office, Financial Aid Awarded, Fiscal Year 1999: Grants, Loans, and Student Earning from Institution Jobs (Jan. 24, 2001). The vast majority of these funds-$23.5 millionflowed to religiously affiliated institutions. Ibid.

Against this background, the support that the Cleveland voucher program provides religious institutions is neither substantial nor atypical of existing government programs. While this observation is not intended to justify the Cleveland voucher program under the Establishment Clause, see post, at 709-710, n. 19 (SOUTER, J., dissenting), it places in broader perspective alarmist claims about implications of the Cleveland program and the Court's decision in these cases. See post, at 685-686 (STEVENS, J., dissenting); post, at 715-716 (SOUTER, J., dissenting); post, p. 717 (BREYER, J., dissenting).

II

Nor does today's decision signal a major departure from this Court's prior Establishment Clause jurisprudence. A central tool in our analysis of cases in this area has been the Lemon test. As originally formulated, a statute passed this test only if it had "a secular legislative purpose," if its "principal or primary effect" was one that "neither advance[d] nor inhibit[ed] religion," and if it did "not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971) (internal quotation marks omitted). In Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 218, 232-233 (1997), we folded the entanglement inquiry into the primary effect inquiry. This made sense because both inquiries rely on the same evidence, see ibid., and the degree of entangle-

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ment has implications for whether a statute advances or inhibits religion, see Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 688 (1984) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring). The test today is basically the same as that set forth in School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 222 (1963) (citing Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947); McGowan

The Court's opinion in these cases focuses on a narrow question related to the Lemon test: how to apply the primary effects prong in indirect aid cases? Specifically, it clarifies the basic inquiry when trying to determine whether a program that distributes aid to beneficiaries, rather than directly to service providers, has the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, at 613-614, or, as I have put it, of "endors[ing] or disapprov[ing] ... religion," Lynch v. Donnelly, supra, at 691-692 (concurring opinion); see also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 69-70 (1985) (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment). See also ante, at 652. Courts are instructed to consider two factors: first, whether the program administers aid in a neutral fashion, without differentiation based on the religious status of beneficiaries or providers of services; second, and more importantly, whether beneficiaries of indirect aid have a genuine choice among religious and nonreligious organizations when determining the organization to which they will direct that aid. If the answer to either query is "no," the program should be struck down under the Establishment Clause. See ante, at 652-653.

JUSTICE SOUTER portrays this inquiry as a departure from Everson. See post, at 687-688 (dissenting opinion). A fair reading of the holding in that case suggests quite the opposite. Justice Black's opinion for the Court held that the "[First] Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and nonbelievers; it does not require the state to be their adversary." Everson, supra, at 18; see also Schempp, supra, at 218, 222.

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How else could the Court have upheld a state program to provide students transportation to public and religious schools alike? What the Court clarifies in these cases is that the Establishment Clause also requires that state aid flowing to religious organizations through the hands of beneficiaries must do so only at the direction of those beneficiaries. Such a refinement of the Lemon test surely does not betray Everson.

III

There is little question in my mind that the Cleveland voucher program is neutral as between religious schools and nonreligious schools. See ante, at 653-654. JUSTICE SOUTER rejects the Court's notion of neutrality, proposing that the neutrality of a program should be gauged not by the opportunities it presents but rather by its effects. In particular, a "neutrality test ... [should] focus on a category of aid that may be directed to religious as well as secular schools, and ask whether the scheme favors a religious direction." Post, at 697 (dissenting opinion). JUSTICE SOUTER doubts that the Cleveland program is neutral under this view. He surmises that the cap on tuition that voucher schools may charge low-income students encourages these students to attend religious rather than nonreligious private voucher schools. See post, at 704-705. But JUSTICE SOUTER'S notion of neutrality is inconsistent with that in our case law. As we put it in Agostini, government aid must be "made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis." 521 U. S., at 231.

I do not agree that the nonreligious schools have failed to provide Cleveland parents reasonable alternatives to religious schools in the voucher program. For nonreligious schools to qualify as genuine options for parents, they need not be superior to religious schools in every respect. They need only be adequate substitutes for religious schools in the eyes of parents. The District Court record demonstrates that nonreligious schools were able to compete effectively

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with Catholic and other religious schools in the Cleveland voucher program. See ante, at 656-657, n. 4. The best evidence of this is that many parents with vouchers selected nonreligious private schools over religious alternatives and an even larger number of parents send their children to community and magnet schools rather than seeking vouchers at all. Supra, at 663-664. Moreover, there is no record evidence that any voucher-eligible student was turned away from a nonreligious private school in the voucher program, let alone a community or magnet school. See 234 F.3d 945, 969 (CA6 2000) (Ryan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Affidavit of David L. Brennan ~ 8, App. 147a.

To support his hunch about the effect of the cap on tuition under the voucher program, JUSTICE SOUTER cites national data to suggest that, on average, Catholic schools have a cost advantage over other types of schools. See post, at 705-706, n. 15 (dissenting opinion). Even if national statistics were relevant for evaluating the Cleveland program, JUSTICE SOUTER ignores evidence which suggests that, at a national level, nonreligious private schools may target a market for a different, if not a higher, quality of education. For example, nonreligious private schools are smaller, see U. S. Dept. of Ed., National Center for Education Statistics, Private School Universe Survey, 1997-1998 (Oct. 1999) (Table 60) (87 and 269 students per private nonreligious and Catholic elementary school, respectively); have smaller class sizes, see ibid. (9.4 and 18.8 students per teacher at private nonreligious and Catholic elementary schools, respectively); have more highly educated teachers, see U. S. Dept. of Ed., National Center for Education Statistics, Private Schools in the United States: A Statistical Profile, 1993-1994 (NCES 97-459, July 1997) (Table 3.4) (37.9 percent of nonreligious private school teachers but only 29.9 percent of Catholic school teachers have Master's degrees); and have principals with longer job tenure than Catholic schools, see ibid. (Table 3.7) (average ten-

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ure of principals at private nonreligious and Catholic schools is 8.2 and 4.7 years, respectively).

Additionally, JUSTICE SOUTER'S theory that the Cleveland voucher program's cap on the tuition encourages low-income students to attend religious schools ignores that these students receive nearly double the amount of tuition assistance under the community schools program than under the voucher program and that none of the community schools is religious. See ante, at 647.

In my view the more significant finding in these cases is that Cleveland parents who use vouchers to send their children to religious private schools do so as a result of true private choice. The Court rejects, correctly, the notion that the high percentage of voucher recipients who enroll in religious private schools necessarily demonstrates that parents do not actually have the option to send their children to nonreligious schools. Ante, at 656-660. Likewise, the mere fact that some parents enrolled their children in religious schools associated with a different faith than their own, see post, at 704 (SOUTER, J., dissenting), says little about whether these parents had reasonable nonreligious options. Indeed, no voucher student has been known to be turned away from a nonreligious private school participating in the voucher program. Supra this page. This is impressive given evidence in the record that the present litigation has discouraged the entry of some nonreligious private schools into the voucher program. Declaration of David P. Zanotti ~~ 5, 10, App. 225a, 227a. Finally, as demonstrated above, the Cleveland program does not establish financial incentives to undertake a religious education.

I find the Court's answer to the question whether parents of students eligible for vouchers have a genuine choice between religious and nonreligious schools persuasive. In looking at the voucher program, all the choices available to potential beneficiaries of the government program should be considered. In these cases, parents who were eligible to

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apply for a voucher also had the option, at a minimum, to send their children to community schools. Yet the Court of Appeals chose not to look at community schools, let alone magnet schools, when evaluating the Cleveland voucher program. See 234 F. 3d, at 958. That decision was incorrect. Focusing in these cases only on the program challenged by respondents ignores how the educational system in Cleveland actually functions. The record indicates that, in 1999, two nonreligious private schools that had previously served 15 percent of the students in the voucher program were prompted to convert to community schools because parents were concerned about the litigation surrounding the program, and because a new community schools program provided more per-pupil financial aid. Many of the students that enrolled in the two schools under the voucher program transferred to the community schools program and continued to attend these schools. See Affidavit of David L. Brennan ~~ 3, 10, App. 145a, 147a; Declaration of David P. Zanotti ~~ 4-10, id., at 225a-227a. This incident provides strong evidence that both parents and nonreligious schools view the voucher program and the community schools program as reasonable alternatives.

Considering all the educational options available to parents whose children are eligible for vouchers, including community and magnet schools, the Court finds that parents in the Cleveland schools have an array of nonreligious options. Ante, at 655. Not surprisingly, respondents present no evidence that any students who were candidates for a voucher were denied slots in a community school or a magnet school. Indeed, the record suggests the opposite with respect to community schools. See Affidavit of David L. Brennan ~ 8, App.147a.

JUSTICE SOUTER nonetheless claims that, of the 10 community schools operating in Cleveland during the 1999-2000 school year, 4 were unavailable to students with vouchers and 4 others reported poor test scores. See post, at 702-

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703, n. 10 (dissenting opinion). But that analysis unreasonably limits the choices available to Cleveland parents. It is undisputed that Cleveland's 24 magnet schools are reasonable alternatives to voucher schools. See post, at 701702, n. 9 (SOUTER, J., dissenting); http://www.cmsdnet.net/ administration/EducationaIServices/magnet.htm (June 20, 2002). And of the four community schools JUSTICE SOUTER claims are unavailable to voucher students, he is correct only about one (Life Skills Center of Cleveland). Affidavit of Steven M. Puckett ~ 12, App. 162a. JUSTICE SOUTER rejects the three other community schools (Horizon Science Academy, Cleveland Alternative Learning, and International Preparatory School) because they did not offer primary school classes, were targeted toward poor students or students with disciplinary or academic problems, or were not in operation for a year. See post, at 702-703, n. 10. But a community school need not offer primary school classes to be an alternative to religious middle schools, and catering to impoverished or otherwise challenged students may make a school more attractive to certain inner-city parents. Moreover, the one community school that was closed in 19992000 was merely looking for a new location and was operational in other years. See Affidavit of Steven M. Puckett ~ 12, App. 162a; Ohio Dept. of Ed., Office of School Options, Community Schools, Ohio's Community School Directory (June 22, 2002), http://www.ode.state.oh.us/community_ schools/community _schooLdirectory/default.asp. Two more community schools were scheduled to open after the 19992000 school year. See Affidavit of Steven M. Puckett ~ 13, App.163a.

Of the six community schools that JUSTICE SOUTER admits as alternatives to the voucher program in 1999-2000, he notes that four (the Broadway, Cathedral, Chapelside, and Lincoln Park campuses of the Hope Academy) reported lower test scores than public schools during the school year after the District Court's grant of summary judgment to re-

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spondents, according to report cards prepared by the Ohio Department of Education. See post, at 702-703, n. 10 (dissenting opinion). (One, Old Brooklyn Montessori School, performed better than public schools. Ibid.; see also Ohio Dept. of Ed., 2001 Community School Report Card, Old Brooklyn Montessori School 5 (community school scored higher than public schools in four of five subjects in 19992000).) These report cards underestimate the value of the four Hope Academy schools. Before they entered the community school program, two of them participated in the voucher program. Although they received far less state funding in that capacity, they had among the highest rates of parental satisfaction of all voucher schools, religious or nonreligious. See P. Peterson, W. Howell, & J. Greene, An Evaluation of the Cleveland Voucher Program after Two Years 6, Table 4 (June 1999) (hereinafter Peterson). This is particularly impressive given that a Harvard University study found that the Hope Academy schools attracted the "poorest and most educationally disadvantaged students." J. Greene, W. Howell, P. Peterson, Lessons from the Cleveland Scholarship Program 22, 24 (Oct. 15, 1997). Moreover, JUSTICE SOUTER'S evaluation of the Hope Academy schools assumes that the only relevant measure of school quality is academic performance. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that parents in the inner city also choose schools that provide discipline and a safe environment for their children. On these dimensions some of the schools that JUSTICE SOUTER derides have performed quite ably. See Peterson, Table 7.

Ultimately, JUSTICE SOUTER relies on very narrow data to draw rather broad conclusions. One year of poor test scores at four community schools targeted at the most challenged students from the inner city says little about the value of those schools, let alone the quality of the 6 other community schools and 24 magnet schools in Cleveland. JUSTICE SOUTER'S use of statistics confirms the Court's wisdom in refus-

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ing to consider them when assessing the Cleveland program's constitutionality. See ante, at 658. What appears to motivate JUSTICE SOUTER'S analysis is a desire for a limiting principle to rule out certain nonreligious schools as alternatives to religious schools in the voucher program. See post, at 700,701-702, n. 9 (dissenting opinion). But the goal of the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence is to determine whether, after the Cleveland voucher program was enacted, parents were free to direct state educational aid in either a nonreligious or religious direction. See ante, at 655-656. That inquiry requires an evaluation of all reasonable educational options Ohio provides the Cleveland school system, regardless of whether they are formally made available in the same section of the Ohio Code as the voucher program.

Based on the reasoning in the Court's opinion, which is consistent with the realities of the Cleveland educational system, I am persuaded that the Cleveland voucher program affords parents of eligible children genuine nonreligious options and is consistent with the Establishment Clause.

JUSTICE THOMAS, concurring.

Frederick Douglass once said that "[e]ducation ... means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free." 1 Today many of our inner-city public schools deny emancipation to urban minority students. Despite this Court's observation nearly 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U. S. 483, 493 (1954), that "it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education," urban children have been forced into a system that continually fails them. These cases present an

1 The Blessings of Liberty and Education: An Address Delivered in Manassas, Virginia, on 3 September 1894, in 5 The Frederick Douglass Papers 623 (J. Blassingame & J. McKivigan eds. 1992) (hereinafter Douglass Papers).

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example of such failures. Besieged by escalating financial problems and declining academic achievement, the Cleveland City School District was in the midst of an academic emergency when Ohio enacted its scholarship program.

The dissents and respondents wish to invoke the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as incorporated through the Fourteenth, to constrain a State's neutral efforts to provide greater educational opportunity for underprivileged minority students. Today's decision properly upholds the program as constitutional, and I join it in full.

I

This Court has often considered whether efforts to provide children with the best educational resources conflict with constitutional limitations. Attempts to provide aid to religious schools or to allow some degree of religious involvement in public schools have generated significant controversy and litigation as States try to navigate the line between the secular and the religious in education. See generally Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Ed. of School Dist. No. 71, Champaign Cty., 333 U. S. 203, 237-238 (1948) (Jackson, J., concurring) (noting that the Constitution does not tell judges "where the secular ends and the sectarian begins in education"). We have recently decided several cases challenging federal aid programs that include religious schools. See, e. g., Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U. S. 793 (2000); Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203 (1997). To determine whether a federal program survives scrutiny under the Establishment Clause, we have considered whether it has a secular purpose and whether it has the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. See Mitchell, supra, at 807-808. I agree with the Court that Ohio's program easily passes muster under our stringent test, but, as a matter of first principles, I question whether this test should be applied to the States.

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The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." On its face, this provision places no limit on the States with regard to religion. The Establishment Clause originally protected States, and by extension their citizens, from the imposition of an established religion by the Federal Government. 2 Whether and how this Clause should constrain state action under the Fourteenth Amendment is a more difficult question.

The Fourteenth Amendment fundamentally restructured the relationship between individuals and the States and ensured that States would not deprive citizens of liberty without due process of law. It guarantees citizenship to all individuals born or naturalized in the United States and provides that "[n]o State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." As Justice Harlan noted, the Fourteenth Amendment "added greatly to the dignity and glory of American citizenship, and to the security of personal liberty." Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537, 555 (1896) (dissenting opinion). When rights are incorporated against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment they should advance, not constrain, individual liberty.

Consequently, in the context of the Establishment Clause, it may well be that state action should be evaluated on different terms than similar action by the Federal Government. "States, while bound to observe strict neutrality, should be freer to experiment with involvement [in religion]-on a neu-

2 See, e. g., School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 309-310 (1963) (Stewart, J., dissenting) ("[T]he Establishment Clause was primarily an attempt to insure that Congress not only would be powerless to establish a national church, but would also be unable to interfere with existing state establishments"); see also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 113 (1985) (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting).

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tral basis-than the Federal Government." Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 699 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring). Thus, while the Federal Government may "make no law respecting an establishment of religion," the States may pass laws that include or touch on religious matters so long as these laws do not impede free exercise rights or any other individual religious liberty interest. By considering the particular religious liberty right alleged to be invaded by a State, federal courts can strike a proper balance between the demands of the Fourteenth Amendment on the one hand and the federalism prerogatives of States on the other.3

Whatever the textual and historical merits of incorporating the Establishment Clause, I can accept that the Fourteenth Amendment protects religious liberty rights.4 But I

3 Several Justices have suggested that rights incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment apply in a different manner to the States than they do to the Federal Government. For instance, Justice Jackson stated, "[t]he inappropriateness of a single standard for restricting State and N ation is indicated by the disparity between their functions and duties in relation to those freedoms." Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U. S. 250, 294 (1952) (dissenting opinion). Justice Harlan noted: "The Constitution differentiates between those areas of human conduct subject to the regulation of the States and those subject to the powers of the Federal Government. The substantive powers of the two governments, in many instances, are distinct. And in every case where we are called upon to balance the interest in free expression against other interests, it seems to me important that we should keep in the forefront the question of whether those other interests are state or federal." Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 503-504 (1957) (dissenting opinion). See also Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652, 672 (1925) (Holmes, J., dissenting).

4 In particular, these rights inhere in the Free Exercise Clause, which unlike the Establishment Clause protects individual liberties of religious worship. "That the central value embodied in the First Amendmentand, more particularly, in the guarantee of 'liberty' contained in the Fourteenth-is the safeguarding of an individual's right to free exercise of his religion has been consistently recognized." Schempp, supra, at 312 (Stewart, J., dissenting). See also Amar, The Bill of Rights as a Constitution, 100 Yale L. J. 1131, 1159 (1991) ("[T]he free exercise clause was paradigmatically about citizen rights, not state rights; it thus invites incor-

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cannot accept its use to oppose neutral programs of school choice through the incorporation of the Establishment Clause. There would be a tragic irony in converting the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of individual liberty into a prohibition on the exercise of educational choice.

II

The wisdom of allowing States greater latitude in dealing with matters of religion and education can be easily appreciated in this context. Respondents advocate using the Fourteenth Amendment to handcuff the State's ability to experiment with education. But without education one can hardly exercise the civic, political, and personal freedoms conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment. Faced with a severe educational crisis, the State of Ohio enacted wide-ranging educational reform that allows voluntary participation of private and religious schools in educating poor urban children otherwise condemned to failing public schools. The program does not force any individual to submit to religious indoctrination or education. It simply gives parents a greater choice as to where and in what manner to educate their children.5 This is a choice that those with greater means have routinely exercised.

poration. Indeed, this clause was specially concerned with the plight of minority religions, and thus meshes especially well with the minorityrights thrust of the Fourteenth Amendment"); Lietzau, Rediscovering the Establishment Clause: Federalism and the Rollback of Incorporation, 39 DePaul L. Rev. 1191, 1206-1207 (1990).

5 This Court has held that parents have the fundamental liberty to choose how and in what manner to educate their children. "The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations." Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 535 (1925). But see Troxel v. Granville, 530 U. S. 57, 80 (2000) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment).

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Cleveland parents now have a variety of educational choices. There are traditional public schools, magnet schools, and privately run community schools, in addition to the scholarship program. Currently, 46 of the 56 private schools participating in the scholarship program are church affiliated (35 are Catholic), and 96 percent of students in the program attend religious schools. See App. 281a-286a; 234 F.3d 945, 949 (CA6 2000). Thus, were the Court to disallow the inclusion of religious schools, Cleveland children could use their scholarships at only 10 private schools.

In addition to expanding the reach of the scholarship program, the inclusion of religious schools makes sense given Ohio's purpose of increasing educational performance and opportunities. Religious schools, like other private schools, achieve far better educational results than their public counterparts. For example, the students at Cleveland's Catholic schools score significantly higher on Ohio proficiency tests than students at Cleveland public schools. Of Cleveland eighth graders taking the 1999 Ohio proficiency test, 95 percent in Catholic schools passed the reading test, whereas only 57 percent in public schools passed. And 75 percent of Catholic school students passed the math proficiency test, compared to only 22 percent of public school students. See Brief for Petitioners in No. 00-1777, p. 10. But the success of religious and private schools is in the end beside the point, because the State has a constitutional right to experiment with a variety of different programs to promote educational opportunity. That Ohio's program includes successful schools simply indicates that such reform can in fact provide improved education to underprivileged urban children.

Although one of the purposes of public schools was to promote democracy and a more egalitarian culture,6 failing urban public schools disproportionately affect minority children most in need of educational opportunity. At the time

6 See, e. g., N. Edwards, School in the American Social Order: The Dynamics of American Education 360-362 (1947).

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of Reconstruction, blacks considered public education "a matter of personal liberation and a necessary function of a free society." J. Anderson, Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935, p. 18 (1988). Today, however, the promise of public school education has failed poor inner-city blacks. While in theory providing education to everyone, the quality of public schools varies significantly across districts. Just as blacks supported public education during Reconstruction, many blacks and other minorities now support school choice programs because they provide the greatest educational opportunities for their children in struggling communities.7 Opponents of the program raise formalistic concerns about the Establishment Clause but ignore the core purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.

While the romanticized ideal of universal public education resonates with the cognoscenti who oppose vouchers, poor urban families just want the best education for their children, who will certainly need it to function in our high-tech and advanced society. As Thomas Sowell noted 30 years ago: "Most black people have faced too many grim, concrete problems to be romantics. They want and need certain tangible results, which can be achieved only by developing certain specific abilities." Black Education: Myths and Tragedies 228 (1972). The same is true today. An individual's life prospects increase dramatically with each successfully completed phase of education. For instance, a black high

7Minority and low-income parents express the greatest support for parental choice and are most interested in placing their children in private schools. "[T]he appeal of private schools is especially strong among parents who are low in income, minority, and live in low-performing districts: precisely the parents who are the most disadvantaged under the current system." T. Moe, Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public 164 (2001). Nearly three-fourths of all public school parents with an annual income less than $20,000 support vouchers, compared to 57 percent of public school parents with an annual income of over $60,000. See id., at 214 (Table 7-3). In addition, 75 percent of black public school parents support vouchers, as do 71 percent of Hispanic public school parents. Ibid.

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school dropout earns just over $13,500, but with a high school degree the average income is almost $21,000. Blacks with a bachelor's degree have an average annual income of about $37,500, and $75,500 with a professional degree. See U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States 140 (2001) (Table 218). Staying in school and earning a degree generates real and tangible financial benefits, whereas failure to obtain even a high school degree essentially relegates students to a life of poverty and, all too often, of crime.8 The failure to provide education to poor urban children perpetuates a vicious cycle of poverty, dependence, criminality, and alienation that continues for the remainder of their lives. If society cannot end racial discrimination, at least it can arm minorities with the education to defend themselves from some of discrimination's effects.

***

Ten States have enacted some form of publicly funded private school choice as one means of raising the quality of education provided to underprivileged urban children.9 These programs address the root of the problem with failing urban public schools that disproportionately affect minority students. Society's other solution to these educational failures is often to provide racial preferences in higher education. Such preferences, however, run afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment's prohibition against distinctions based on race. See Plessy, 163 U. S., at 555 (Harlan, J., dissenting). By contrast, school choice programs that involve religious schools

8 In 1997, approximately 68 percent of prisoners in state correctional institutions did not have a high school degree. See U. S. Dept. of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics2000, p. 519 (Table 6.38).

9 These programs include tax credits for such schooling. In addition, 37 States have some type of charter school law. See School Choice 2001:

What's Happening in the States xxv (R. Moffitt, J. Garrett, & J. Smith eds. 2001) (Table 1).

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appear unconstitutional only to those who would twist the Fourteenth Amendment against itself by expansively incorporating the Establishment Clause. Converting the Fourteenth Amendment from a guarantee of opportunity to an obstacle against education reform distorts our constitutional values and disserves those in the greatest need.

As Frederick Douglass poignantly noted, "no greater benefit can be bestowed upon a long benighted people, than giving to them, as we are here earnestly this day endeavoring to do, the means of an education." 10

JUSTICE STEVENS, dissenting.

Is a law that authorizes the use of public funds to pay for the indoctrination of thousands of grammar school children in particular religious faiths a "law respecting an establishment of religion" within the meaning of the First Amendment? In answering that question, I think we should ignore three factual matters that are discussed at length by my colleagues.

First, the severe educational crisis that confronted the Cleveland City School District when Ohio enacted its voucher program is not a matter that should affect our appraisal of its constitutionality. In the 1999-2000 school year, that program provided relief to less than five percent of the students enrolled in the district's schools. The solution to the disastrous conditions that prevented over 90 percent of the student body from meeting basic proficiency standards obviously required massive improvements unrelated to the voucher program.1 Of course, the emergency may have

10 Douglass Papers 623.

1 Ohio is currently undergoing a major overhaul of its public school financing pursuant to an order of the Ohio Supreme Court in DeRolph v. State, 93 Ohio St. 3d 309, 754 N. E. 2d 1184 (2001). The Court ought, at least, to allow that reform effort and the district's experimentation with alternative public schools to take effect before relying on Cleveland's educational crisis as a reason for state financed religious education.

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given some families a powerful motivation to leave the public school system and accept religious indoctrination that they would otherwise have avoided, but that is not a valid reason for upholding the program.

Second, the wide range of choices that have been made available to students within the public school system has no bearing on the question whether the State may pay the tuition for students who wish to reject public education entirely and attend private schools that will provide them with a sectarian education. The fact that the vast majority of the voucher recipients who have entirely rejected public education receive religious indoctrination at state expense does, however, support the claim that the law is one "respecting an establishment of religion." The State may choose to divide up its public schools into a dozen different options and label them magnet schools, community schools, or whatever else it decides to call them, but the State is still required to provide a public education and it is the State's decision to fund private school education over and above its traditional obligation that is at issue in these cases.2

Third, the voluntary character of the private choice to prefer a parochial education over an education in the public school system seems to me quite irrelevant to the question whether the government's choice to pay for religious indoctrination is constitutionally permissible. Today, however, the Court seems to have decided that the mere fact that a family that cannot afford a private education wants its children educated in a parochial school is a sufficient justification for this use of public funds.

For the reasons stated by JUSTICE SOUTER and JUSTICE BREYER, I am convinced that the Court's decision is profoundly misguided. Admittedly, in reaching that conclusion

2 The Court suggests that an education at one of the district's community or magnet schools is provided "largely at state expense." Ante, at 660, n. 6. But a public education at either of these schools is provided entirely at state expense-as the State is required to do.

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I have been influenced by my understanding of the impact of religious strife on the decisions of our forbears to migrate to this continent, and on the decisions of neighbors in the Balkans, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East to mistrust one another. Whenever we remove a brick from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government, we increase the risk of religious strife and weaken the foundation of our democracy.

I respectfully dissent.

JUSTICE SOUTER, with whom JUSTICE STEVENS, JUSTICE GINSBURG, and JUSTICE BREYER join, dissenting.

The Court's majority holds that the Establishment Clause is no bar to Ohio's payment of tuition at private religious elementary and middle schools under a scheme that systematically provides tax money to support the schools' religious missions. The occasion for the legislation thus upheld is the condition of public education in the city of Cleveland. The record indicates that the schools are failing to serve their objective, and the vouchers in issue here are said to be needed to provide adequate alternatives to them. If there were an excuse for giving short shrift to the Establishment Clause, it would probably apply here. But there is no excuse. Constitutional limitations are placed on government to preserve constitutional values in hard cases, like these. "[C]onstitutionallines have to be drawn, and on one side of every one of them is an otherwise sympathetic case that provokes impatience with the Constitution and with the line. But constitutional lines are the price of constitutional government." Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 254 (1997) (SOUTER, J., dissenting). I therefore respectfully dissent.

The applicability of the Establishment Clause 1 to public funding of benefits to religious schools was settled in Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947), which inau-

1 "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,"

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gurated the modern era of establishment doctrine. The Court stated the principle in words from which there was no dissent:

"No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion." Id., at 16.

The Court has never in so many words repudiated this statement, let alone, in so many words, overruled Everson.

Today, however, the majority holds that the Establishment Clause is not offended by Ohio's Pilot Project Scholarship Program, under which students may be eligible to receive as much as $2,250 in the form of tuition vouchers transferable to religious schools. In the city of Cleveland the overwhelming proportion of large appropriations for voucher money must be spent on religious schools if it is to be spent at all, and will be spent in amounts that cover almost all of tuition. The money will thus pay for eligible students' instruction not only in secular subjects but in religion as well, in schools that can fairly be characterized as founded to teach religious doctrine and to imbue teaching in all subjects with a religious dimension.2 Public tax money will pay at a systemic level for teaching the covenant with Israel and Mosaic law in Jewish schools, the primacy of the Apostle Peter and the Papacy in Catholic schools, the truth of reformed Christianity in Protestant schools, and the revelation to the Prophet in Muslim schools, to speak only of major religious groupings in the Republic.

2 See, e. g., App. 319a (Saint Jerome School Parent and Student Handbook 1999-2000, p. 1) ("FAITH must dominate the entire educational process so that the child can make decisions according to Catholic values and choose to lead a Christian life"); id., at 347a (Westside Baptist Christian School Parent-Student Handbook, p. 7) ("Christ is the basis of all learning. All subjects will be taught from the Biblical perspective that all truth is God's truth").

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How can a Court consistently leave Everson on the books and approve the Ohio vouchers? The answer is that it cannot. It is only by ignoring Everson that the majority can claim to rest on traditional law in its invocation of neutral aid provisions and private choice to sanction the Ohio law. It is, moreover, only by ignoring the meaning of neutrality and private choice themselves that the majority can even pretend to rest to day's decision on those criteria.

I

The majority's statements of Establishment Clause doctrine cannot be appreciated without some historical perspective on the Court's announced limitations on government aid to religious education, and its repeated repudiation of limits previously set. My object here is not to give any nuanced exposition of the cases, which I tried to classify in some detail in an earlier opinion, see Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U. S. 793, 873-899 (2000) (dissenting opinion), but to set out the broad doctrinal stages covered in the modern era, and to show that doctrinal bankruptcy has been reached today.

Viewed with the necessary generality, the cases can be categorized in three groups. In the period from 1947 to 1968, the basic principle of no aid to religion through school benefits was unquestioned. Thereafter for some 15 years, the Court termed its efforts as attempts to draw a line against aid that would be divertible to support the religious, as distinct from the secular, activity of an institutional beneficiary. Then, starting in 1983, concern with divertibility was gradually lost in favor of approving aid in amounts unlikely to afford substantial benefits to religiou