Opinion ID: 1806806
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the free exercise and establishment clauses of the first amendment.

Text: The First Amendment to the Federal Constitution provides in pertinent part: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof   . We should heed well, prior to embarking upon any constitutional interpretation, the advice most recently expressed by Mr. Chief Justice Burger in Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970), 397 US 664 (90 S Ct 1409, 25 L Ed 2d 697), that it is a Constitution we are expounding and we must, therefore, judiciously refrain from relying upon sweeping utterances from other cases which may be appropriate to those cases but have limited meaning as general principles. [11] The argument is often advanced that the United States Supreme Court has held unconstitutional all education benefits extended to nonpublic schools. The contrary is true for that court has upheld statutes providing textbooks ( Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education [1930], 281 US 370 [50 S Ct 335, 74 L Ed 913]; Board of Education v. Allen [1968], 392 US 236 [88 S Ct 1923, 20 L Ed 2d 1060]) and bus transportation ( Everson v. Board of Education [1947], 330 US 1 [67 S Ct 504, 91 L Ed 711, 168 ALR 1392]), for nonpublic school children, as well as statutes involving released time for attendance at religious instructions or devotional exercises off the premises of public schools ( Zorach v. Clauson [1952], 343 US 306 [72 S Ct 679, 96 L Ed 954]). The only cases in which state educational programs have been held violative of the free exercise or establishment clause by the United States Supreme Court are those involving religious instructions or exercises in public schools. McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), 333 US 203 (68 S Ct 461, 92 L Ed 649, 2 ALR2d 1338) (religious instruction in public schools); School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), 374 US 203 (83 S Ct 1560, 10 L Ed 2d 844) (Bible reading in public schools); Engel v. Vitale (1962), 370 US 421 (82 S Ct 1261, 8 L Ed 2d 601, 86 ALR2d 1285) (reading of prayer in public schools). Accordingly, ritualistic invocation of the nonconstitutional phrase separation of church and state will not suffice. What is compelled is an analysis of just what the neutrality is which is required by the interplay of the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. [12] In drawing the line between the secular and sectarian, between legislation which provides funds for the welfare of the general public and that which is designed to support institutions which teach religion, the United States Supreme Court [13] has consistently utilized the concept [14] of neutrality. This concept of neutrality was well described by the Court in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, supra : The wholesome `neutrality' of which this Court's cases speak thus stems from a recognition of the teachings of history that powerful sects or groups might bring about a fusion of governmental and religious functions or a concert or dependency of one upon the other to the end that official support of the State or Federal Government would be placed behind the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies. This the Establishment Clause prohibits. And a further reason for neutrality is found in the Free Exercise Clause, which recognizes the value of religious training, teaching and observance and, more particularly, the right of every person to freely choose his own course with reference thereto, free of any compulsion from the state. This the Free Exercise Clause guarantees. Thus, as we have seen, the two clauses may overlap. (P 222.) The application of the concept to the facts of the case or controversy is tested by the standard implied in Everson, recognized in Schempp, reiterated in Allen, and applied most currently in Walz : The test may be stated as follows: what are the purpose and the primary effect of the enactment? If either is the advancement or inhibition of religion then the enactment exceeds the scope of legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say that to withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause there must be a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion. ( Schempp, supra, p 222.) (Emphasis added.) Applying the first factor of this two-fold test  the secular legislative purpose  we observe that it is only the legislative purpose with which we are concerned and not the sectarian purposes of nonpublic schools. The fact that the enactment incidentally furthers the sectarian purposes of the individuals or organizations most directly affected does not render it constitutionally impermissible. It is for the Legislature and not this Court to identify and respond to legitimate public needs to suit the general welfare. The leading authority in this jurisdiction as to what constitutes a public purpose is The People ex rel. The Detroit and Howell Railroad Co. v. The Township Board of Salem (1870), 20 Mich 452, 475, where Justice COOLEY said: I do not understand that the word public, when employed in reference to this power, is to be construed or applied in any narrow or illiberal sense, or in any sense which would preclude the Legislature from taking broad views of State interest, necessity or policy, or from giving those views effect by means of the public revenues. Necessity alone is not the test by which the limits of State authority in this direction are to be defined, but a wise statemanship must look beyond the expenditures which are absolutely needful to the continued existence of organized government, and embrace others which may tend to make that government subserve the general well-being of society, and advance the present and prospective happiness and prosperity of the people. See, also, Miller v. State Apple Commission (1941), 296 Mich 248, 254; Hays v. Kalamazoo (1947), 316 Mich 443. The expansion in the scope of legislative activities which may be classed as involving a public purpose to conform to the changing conditions of society has been sustained in City of Gaylord v. Gaylord City Clerk (1966), 378 Mich 273. Our Legislature has spoken forthrightly in § 56 of its desire to foster, improve and advance the quality of secular education, wherever offered, as an integral element of the public welfare. This salutary and beneficent intent and design, moreover, is not a hastily conceived desire to subsidize any or all denominationally-sponsored schools nor a plan effecting a type of religious gerrymandering, but rather the product of extensive and in-depth studies and investigations under the aegises of both the executive [15] and legislative [16] branches to develop and upgrade a comprehensive system of secular education extant in our state. It is beyond dispute that sectarian schools pursue the dual goals of religious instruction and secular education ( Pierce v. Society of Sisters [1925], 268 US 510, 532 [45 S Ct 571, 69 L Ed 1070, 39 ALR 468]) and that the parents of the school age child may, in the discharge of their duty under the compulsory education laws, send their child to a religious rather than a public school if the school meets the secular educational requirements which the state has the power to impose. Everson, supra, at p 18. From this delicate balance of the individual's right to private education and the state's exercise of the police power emerged the determination that if the state must satisfy its interest in secular education through the instrumentality of private schools, the state has a proper interest in the manner in which those schools perform their secular education function and that the state's interest in secular education in those schools is a legitimate legislative concern. It was thus concluded by the Court in Allen, supra, at pp 247, 248: Underlying these cases, and underlying also the legislative judgments that have preceded the court decisions, has been a recognition that private education has played and is playing a significant and valuable role in raising national levels of knowledge, competence, and experience. Americans care about the quality of the secular education available to their children. They have considered high quality education to be an indispensable ingredient for achieving the kind of nation, and the kind of citizenry, that they have desired to create. Considering this attitude, the continued willingness to rely on private school systems, including parochial systems, strongly suggests that a wide segment of informed opinion, legislative and otherwise, has found that those schools do an acceptable job of providing secular education to their students. This judgment is further evidence that parochial schools are performing, in addition to their sectarian function, the task of secular education. The continuing and intensifying financial crisis which now afflicts all education in this country, particularly nonpublic school education, raises serious doubts as to whether nonpublic schools can continue to properly perform their task of secular education. Allen, supra, at p 248. We take note of the fact that a large number of nonpublic schools have closed during the last year and are continuing to close at an increasingly alarming rate. [17] These closings are adding to the public schools' financial educational crisis. [18] Under these circumstances it is clear that chapter 2 serves a public purpose. In view of the express recognition of these factors in the act here involved and the declared public policy upon a matter of general welfare and in view not only of the recent pronouncements of the Federal Courts on this subject [19] but also well-established congressional enactments in cognate fields, [20] we must conclude that the purchase of the services of certified lay teachers teaching secular subjects in eligible units constitutes a secular legislative purpose. Turning to the second factor of the Schempp-Allen test, we must determine whether the act has a primary effect which either advances or inhibits religion, and if we find that it does we must declare the act to be constitutionally infirm. As observed by Mr. Justice Douglas, concurring in Schempp, this constitutionally impermissible effect may be accomplished in various ways  some blatant, some insidious  but all designed to achieve one end: Establishment of a religion can be achieved in several ways. The church and state can be one; the church may control the state or the state may control the church; or the relationship may take one of several possible forms of a working arrangement between the two bodies. Under all of these arrangements the church typically has a place in the state's budget, and church law usually governs such matters as baptism, marriage, divorce and separation, at least for its members and sometimes for the entire body politic. Education, too, is usually high on the priority list of church interests. In the past schools were often made the exclusive responsibility of the church. Today in some state-church countries the state runs the public schools, but compulsory religious exercises are often required of some or all students. Thus, under the agreement Franco made with the Holy See when he came to power in Spain, `The Church regained its place in the national budget. It insists on baptizing all children and has made the catechism obligatory in state schools.' The vice of all such arrangements under the Establishment Clause is that the state is lending its assistance to a church's effort to gain and keep adherents. (Pp 227, 228.)