Everson v. Board of Education

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1947 United States Supreme Court case

Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that applied the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to state law . Before this decision, the clause, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", restricted only the federal government, while many states continued to grant certain religious denominations legislative or effective privileges.

It was the first Supreme Court case incorporating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as binding upon the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment .

A New Jersey taxpayer brought the case against a tax-funded school district that provided reimbursement to parents of both public and private school students who took public transportation to school. The taxpayer contended that reimbursement for children attending private religious schools violated the constitutional prohibition against state support of religion, and the use of taxpayer funds to do so violated the Due Process Clause. The Justices were split over the question whether the New Jersey policy constituted support of religion, with the majority concluding that the reimbursements were "separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function" that they did not violate the constitution. Both affirming and dissenting Justices, however, agreed that the Constitution required a sharp separation between government and religion, and their strongly-worded opinions paved the way to a series of later court decisions that collectively brought about profound changes in legislation, public education, and other policies involving matters of religion. Both Justice Hugo Black 's majority opinion and Justice Wiley Rutledge 's dissenting opinion defined the First Amendment religious clause in terms of a "wall of separation between church and state."

Background

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After repealing a former ban, a 1941 New Jersey law authorized payment by local school boards of the costs of transportation to and from schools, including private schools, most of which were parochial Catholic schools .

Arch R. Everson, a taxpayer in Ewing Township , filed a lawsuit on state constitutional grounds. The Establishment Clause was not yet incorporated when the lawsuit was filed.

The New Jersey Supreme Court held that the provision violated the state constitution's purpose restriction on the legislative power to authorize spending for private and parochial schools.

After this decision was reversed by the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals , then the state's highest court, Everson appealed to the US Supreme Court which decided the case on federal grounds only.

Supreme Court

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The Supreme Court handed down its 5–4 decision upholding the state law on February 10, 1947. The decision was the first to hold that the Establishment Clause was applicable against the states. It is also remembered as the first Supreme Court case to attempt an explanation of the Establishment Clause. They held that the New Jersey law providing reimbursement to transportation to all students was not a violation of the establishment clause.

Majority opinion

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In a majority opinion by Justice Hugo Black, the Supreme Court ruled that the state bill was constitutionally permissible because the law had a "public purpose" to provide safe transportation to parochial school students.

The Court's interpretation of the Establishment Clause was broad and would guide the Court's jurisprudence for decades to come. Arthur E. Sutherland Jr. called it "the most influential single announcement of the American law of church and state". Black's language was sweeping:

The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. 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. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect "'a wall of separation between Church and State."

This highly influential dictum was supported only by a historical analysis based on James Madison 's _Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments _ and Thomas Jefferson 's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom .

Dissents

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Justice Jackson wrote a dissenting opinion which Justice Frankfurter joined. Justice Rutledge wrote another dissenting opinion which Justices Frankfurter, Jackson, and Burton joined. The four dissenters agreed with Justice Black's definition of the Establishment Clause but protested that the principles that he laid down would logically lead to the invalidation of the challenged law:

The great condition of religious liberty is that it be maintained free from sustenance, as also from other interferences, by the state. For when it comes to rest upon that secular foundation it vanishes with the resting.

Legal scholarship

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"Wall of separation": No aid to religion

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Everson confirmed that the Supreme Court would interpret the Establishment Clause to protect against more than the establishment of a state church. The "wall of separation" was a principle of the founding age that prohibited any government aid to religion. The Establishment Clause would not allow any public spending "to support any religious activities, or institutions whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion".

"Public purpose": Indirect benefit

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Everson upheld the constitutionality of reimbursing the students transportation costs because the program had a public welfare purpose. The Court said that public funds could not be used "to teach or practice religion." Citing _Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education _, Justice Black wrote that it was "too late to argue that legislation intended to facilitate the opportunity of children to get a secular education serves no public purpose".

An "indirect benefit" to parochial schools did not make a statute with a legitimate secular purpos

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