Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/16pdf/15-577_khlp.pdf
Page Number: 33

Cite as:  582 U. S. ____ (2017) 

7 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

program  had  “adequate  safeguards”  to  police  violations. 
Id., at 867 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment).  Those 
factors,  it  concluded,  were  “sufficient  to  find  that  the 
program  . . .  [did]  not  have  the  impermissible  effect  of
advancing religion.”  Ibid. 

A  plurality  would  have  instead  upheld  the  program
based  only  on  the  secular  nature  of  the  aid  and  the  pro-
gram’s “neutrality” as to the religious or secular nature of
the recipient.  See id., at 809–814.  The controlling concur-
rence  rejected  that  approach.    It  viewed  the  plurality’s 
test—“secular  content  aid  . . .  distributed  on  the  basis  of 
wholly  neutral  criteria”—as  constitutionally  insufficient. 
Id., at 839.  This test, explained the concurrence, ignored
whether  the  public  funds  subsidize  religion,  the  touch-
stone  of  establishment  jurisprudence.    See  id.,  at  844 
(noting  that  the  plurality’s  logic  would  allow  funding  of 
“religious  organizations  (including  churches)”  where  “the
participating  religious  organizations  (including  churches)
. . . use that aid to support religious indoctrination”).

Today’s  opinion  suggests  the  Court  has  made  the  leap
the  Mitchell  plurality  could  not.  For  if  it  agrees  that  the
funding  here  will  finance  religious  activities,  then  only  a 
rule  that  considers  that  fact  irrelevant  could  support  a 
conclusion of constitutionality.  The problems of the “secu-
lar  and  neutral”  approach  have  been  aired  before.    See, 
e.g.,  id.,  at  900–902  (Souter,  J.,  dissenting).    It  has  no 
basis  in  the  history  to  which  the  Court  has  repeatedly 
turned  to  inform  its  understanding  of  the  Establishment
Clause.  It  permits  direct  subsidies  for  religious  indoctri-
nation,  with  all  the  attendant  concerns  that  led  to  the 
Establishment  Clause.    And  it  favors  certain  religious 
groups,  those  with  a  belief  system  that  allows  them  to 
compete  for  public  dollars  and  those  well-organized  and 
well-funded enough to do so successfully.4 

—————— 

4 This  case  highlights  the  weaknesses  of  the  rule.    The  Scrap  Tire