Roemer v. Board of Public Works of Md.
1976 U.S. LEXIS 70, 426 U.S. 736, 49 L. Ed. 2d 179 (1976)
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Rule of Law:
A state program providing annual, noncategorical financial grants to private colleges, including religiously affiliated institutions, does not violate the Establishment Clause if the recipient institutions are not pervasively sectarian, and the statute restricts the use of funds to secular purposes and is administered to ensure that separation.
Facts:
- Maryland enacted a statute to provide annual financial grants to accredited private colleges in the state, calculated based on the number of full-time students.
- The statute was later amended to explicitly prohibit recipient institutions from utilizing any of the state funds for "sectarian purposes."
- The Maryland Council for Higher Education was tasked with administering the program, requiring affidavits, specific plans for nonsectarian use, and post-expenditure reports from colleges to ensure compliance.
- Four of the recipient colleges—College of Notre Dame, Mount Saint Mary’s College, Saint Joseph College, and Loyola College—were affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.
- These church-affiliated colleges were found to have a high degree of institutional autonomy, with the Catholic Church not controlling day-to-day college decisions.
- The colleges' primary mission was providing secular liberal arts education, they adhered to principles of academic freedom, and did not require students to attend religious services.
- While the colleges had mandatory theology courses taught primarily by clerics, the overall curriculum was secular and religious indoctrination was not a substantial purpose of the institutions.
Procedural Posture:
- Four Maryland taxpayers filed a lawsuit against state officials and five church-affiliated colleges in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland.
- The plaintiffs sought a declaration that the state's aid program was unconstitutional and an injunction to stop payments to the religious institutions.
- A three-judge District Court, in a 2-1 decision, found the amended statute constitutional and denied the injunction.
- The plaintiffs, as appellants, took a direct appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Issue:
Does a Maryland statute that provides annual noncategorical grants to private institutions of higher learning, including church-affiliated colleges, violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment if the statute prohibits the use of the funds for "sectarian purposes"?
Opinions:
Majority - Mr. Justice Blackmun
No. A state program providing annual noncategorical grants to private, church-affiliated colleges does not violate the Establishment Clause when the recipient institutions are not pervasively sectarian and the aid is restricted to secular purposes. Applying the three-part Lemon test, the statute has a clear secular purpose of supporting private higher education. The statute's primary effect does not advance religion because the aid is available to all qualifying private colleges, and the recipient church-affiliated colleges are not 'pervasively sectarian,' meaning their secular educational functions are separable from their sectarian ones. The statutory prohibition against using funds for sectarian purposes, enforced by the Council for Higher Education, ensures that aid only supports the secular side. Finally, the program does not create excessive government entanglement because, unlike in elementary schools, the character of the colleges (with academic freedom and less impressionable students) reduces the need for intrusive state surveillance.
Concurrence - Mr. Justice White
No. The Maryland program is constitutional because it has a secular purpose and its primary effect is not to advance religion. The third prong of the Lemon test, 'excessive government entanglement,' is an unnecessary, paradoxical, and redundant constitutional criterion. The analysis of the character of the institutions, used by the majority to negate excessive entanglement, is the same analysis used to determine the statute's primary effect. It is sufficient that the state is financing a separable secular function of overriding importance to sustain the legislation.
Dissenting - Mr. Justice Brennan
Yes. The Maryland statute violates the Establishment Clause because it provides for general subsidies from public funds directly to religious institutions. Such general subsidies inherently advance religion and create an impermissible interdependence between religion and state, which the First Amendment was designed to prevent. When aid flows directly to a sectarian institution, both its secular and religious functions benefit, thereby aiding the institution's proselytizing function.
Dissenting - Mr. Justice Stewart
Yes. This case is distinguishable from Tilton v. Richardson because the mandatory theology courses at these colleges are not taught as neutral academic subjects but may be devoted to religious indoctrination. The District Court found that these departments are staffed almost entirely by clerics and are geared toward furthering the religious experience of students. Providing non-categorical grants to institutions with this characteristic has the primary effect of advancing religion, regardless of administrative oversight.
Dissenting - Mr. Justice Stevens
Yes. The statute is unconstitutional for the reasons expressed by Justice Brennan. Additionally, state subsidies have a pernicious tendency to tempt religious schools to compromise their religious mission in order to secure state funds, which is a form of entanglement that infects the law by discouraging wholesome religious activity.
Analysis:
This decision solidified the doctrinal split in Establishment Clause jurisprudence between higher education and K-12 education. Following Tilton v. Richardson, the Court affirmed that direct, noncategorical aid to church-affiliated colleges is permissible under a less stringent standard than that applied to parochial schools. The ruling emphasizes that the 'character' of the recipient institution is paramount; if a college is not 'pervasively sectarian,' the state may provide aid with minimal oversight. This reinforces the idea that entanglement concerns are significantly lower at the college level due to academic freedom and the maturity of students.
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