Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 80

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

19 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

then  how  is  a  State’s  decision  to  fund  only  secular  public
schools any less coercive?  Under the majority’s reasoning,
the parents in both cases are put to a choice between their
beliefs and a taxpayer-sponsored education. 

Accepting  the  majority’s  distinction  between public  and
nonpublic schools does little to address the uncertainty that
its holding introduces.  What about charter schools?  States 
vary widely in how they permit charter schools to be struc-
tured, funded, and controlled.  See Mead, Devilish Details: 
Exploring  Features  of  Charter  School  Statutes  That  Blur 
the Public/Private Distinction, 40 Harv. J. Legis. 349, 353–
357, 367–368 (2003).  How would the majority’s rule distin-
guish  between  those  States  in  which  support  for  charter
schools is akin to public school funding and those in which 
it  triggers  a  constitutional  obligation  to  fund  private  reli-
gious  schools?  The  majority’s  rule  provides  no  guidance,
even  as  it  sharply  limits  the  ability  of  courts  and  legisla-
tures  to  balance  the  potentially  competing  interests  that
underlie the Free Exercise and Antiestablishment Clauses. 

* 

* 

* 

It  is  not  easy  to  discern  “the  boundaries  of  the  neutral 
area between” the two Religion Clauses “within which the 
legislature may legitimately act.”  Tilton, 403 U. S., at 677 
(plurality  opinion).  And  it  is  more  difficult  still  in  cases, 
such as this one, where the Constitution’s policy in favor of
free exercise, on one hand, and against state sponsorship, 
on the other, are in conflict.  In such cases, I believe there 
is “no test-related substitute for the exercise of legal judg-
ment.”  Van Orden, 545 U. S., at 700 (opinion of BREYER, 
J.).  That judgment “must reflect and remain faithful to the 
underlying  purposes  of  the  Clauses,  and  it  must  take  ac-
count  of  context  and  consequences  measured  in  light  of 
those purposes.”  Ibid.  Here, those purposes, along with the
examples  set  by  our  decisions  in  Locke  and  Trinity  Lu-