Mitchell v. Helms

United States Supreme Court
530 U.S. 793 (2000)

ELI5:

Rule of Law:

A government aid program providing secular, neutral, and nonideological educational materials and equipment to both public and private schools does not violate the Establishment Clause if eligibility for the aid is determined on a neutral, nondiscriminatory basis. Such a program is constitutional even if the materials are divertible to religious use and are provided to pervasively sectarian schools.

Facts:

Under a federal program known as Chapter 2, the government distributed funds to state and local educational agencies (LEAs).
The LEAs then used these funds to lend educational materials and equipment to both public and private nonprofit schools.
Aid was allocated to participating schools based on the number of students enrolled.
In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, 41 of the 46 participating private schools were religiously affiliated, with 34 being Roman Catholic.
The materials and equipment provided included library books, computers, software, projectors, maps, and laboratory equipment.
The statute mandated that all materials and equipment loaned to private schools be 'secular, neutral, and nonideological.'
The government retained legal title to all loaned materials and equipment; it was not transferred to the private schools.

Procedural Posture:

Respondents filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, alleging the Chapter 2 program as applied in Jefferson Parish violated the Establishment Clause.
The District Court initially granted summary judgment for the respondents, holding the program unconstitutional.
Following subsequent Supreme Court decisions that changed the legal landscape, the District Court reversed its own prior ruling and upheld the Chapter 2 program.
Respondents appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
The Fifth Circuit, holding that it was bound by the Supreme Court precedents of Meek v. Pittenger and Wolman v. Walter, reversed the District Court and found the program unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Fifth Circuit's decision.

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Issue:

Does Chapter 2 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981, as applied in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by lending secular educational materials and equipment to religiously affiliated private schools?

Opinions:

Majority - Justice Thomas

No, Chapter 2 as applied in Jefferson Parish does not violate the Establishment Clause. When government aid is distributed to recipients based on neutral, secular criteria and is itself secular in content, it is not unconstitutional. The inquiry is whether any religious indoctrination could be reasonably attributed to government action, which is answered by looking to the principles of neutrality and private choice. Because Chapter 2 allocates aid based on the neutral criterion of enrollment and reaches religious schools only as a result of the private choices of parents, the program is constitutional. The plurality explicitly overrules the precedent from Meek v. Pittenger and Wolman v. Walter, rejecting the distinctions between textbooks and other instructional materials, the relevance of a school being 'pervasively sectarian,' and the idea that aid is unconstitutional merely because it is 'divertible' to religious use.

Concurring - Justice O'Connor

No, the program does not violate the Establishment Clause, but the plurality's reasoning is overly broad. The proper analysis is governed by Agostini v. Felton, which requires an evaluation of whether aid results in government indoctrination, is defined by reference to religion, or creates excessive entanglement. While neutrality is important, it is not the sole factor. Contrary to the plurality, the actual diversion of government aid for religious indoctrination is constitutionally impermissible. However, in this case, the safeguards against diversion were constitutionally sufficient, and the evidence of actual diversion presented by the respondents was de minimis and therefore insufficient to invalidate the entire program. Meek and Wolman created an irrational distinction between textbooks and other materials and should be overruled.

Dissenting - Justice Souter

Yes, the program as applied violates the Establishment Clause. The plurality's new rule, which elevates evenhandedness to a sufficient test of constitutionality, breaks with decades of established precedent holding that there can be no public aid to a school's religious mission. Neutrality is only one factor among many, including the divertibility of the aid, the pervasively sectarian nature of the recipient schools, and the effectiveness of safeguards. Here, the aid consists of highly divertible materials like computers and projectors provided to pervasively sectarian schools where religious indoctrination is paramount. The safeguards in Jefferson Parish were grossly inadequate, and the record shows evidence of actual diversion of aid to religious purposes, which is a clear constitutional violation.

Analysis:

This decision significantly altered Establishment Clause jurisprudence by replacing a complex, multi-factored analysis with a simpler framework centered on neutrality and private choice. By overruling Meek and Wolman, the Court eliminated the long-criticized and unworkable distinction between textbooks and other forms of instructional aid, thereby expanding the scope of permissible government assistance to religious schools. The plurality's rejection of the 'pervasively sectarian' inquiry and the 'no-diversion' rule signals a major shift toward accommodating religion, making it much harder to challenge neutral aid programs that benefit religious institutions. Future litigation is likely to focus on whether aid programs are truly neutral in their criteria and secular in their content, rather than on the nature of the recipient or the potential use of the aid.

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