Opinion ID: 1441344
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Development of Establishment Clause Jurisprudence

Text: [¶ 34] We look first to the history of the religious exclusion contained in 20-A M.R.S.A. § 2951(2) and the reason for its enactment. Prior to 1981, religious schools were treated no differently than any other private school under Maine's tuition program. In response to concerns about payment of state funds to religious schools, the Legislature sought and received an Opinion of the Attorney General. That opinion concluded that the provision allowing payments to religious schools violated the Establishment Clause. See Op. Me. Att'y Gen. 80-2. The ensuing enactment of the religious exclusion brought about significant changes in at least one religious school that had relied extensively on state tuition funds for operation. [19] [¶ 35] The Legislature enacted the exclusion in 1981 in direct response to developments in Establishment Clause jurisprudence during the 1970's. Placing those developments in a historical context demonstrates that the Legislature had little choice but to adopt the exclusion if it chose to continue its tuition program. [¶ 36] The Supreme Court's evolving treatment of the Establishment Clause has been a study in the changing forces of our society. Although much has been written by eminent scholars on the intertwining of church and state through the decades, our understanding of current decisional doctrine in this mutable area best begins with Everson v. Board of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947). There, a New Jersey statute authorized reimbursement to parents for the expenses of transporting children to school on public busses, including parents of children riding the busses to religious schools. See id. at 4-5, 67 S.Ct. 504. The Supreme Court found no violation of the Establishment Clause. Writing for the Court, Justice Black wrote that [t]he First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. New Jersey has not breached it here. Id. at 18, 67 S.Ct. 504. Accordingly, the Court refused to strike down programs that provided transportation to religious as well as nonsecular schools. [¶ 37] Everson was followed twenty years later by Board of Educ. v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968). In Allen, the Court similarly upheld a New York statute requiring local public school authorities to lend textbooks free of charge to all students in grades 7 through 12, including students attending religious schools. See id. at 238, 88 S.Ct. 1923. The Court found that the books were provided to further educational opportunities for children and only benefitted the parents of children in religious schools and not the religious schools themselves because the books technically were owned by the State. See id. at 243-44, 88 S.Ct. 1923. [¶ 38] Beginning in the early 1970's, however, the Court evidenced a significant shift in its focus, from the public purpose of the program under scrutiny, to the possible benefits to the religious institutions at issue. In 1971, the Court acknowledged the difficulties it had encountered in attempting to delineate the point at which a seemingly neutral program crosses the line into a violation of the Establishment Clause: [c]andor compels acknowledgement... that we can only dimly perceive the lines of demarcation in this extraordinarily sensitive area of constitutional law. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). To bring greater clarity to that demarcation, the Court announced a three-part test which would assist courts in drawing lines to protect against the three main evils against which the Establishment Clause was intended to afford protection: `sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activities.' Id. (quoting Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U.S. 664, 668, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970)). [¶ 39] The Lemon Test comprises a three-pronged analysis, gleaned from prior cases, requiring that: [f]irst, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion... and finally, the statute must not foster `an excessive government entanglement with religion.' Id. at 612-13, 91 S.Ct. 2105 (citations omitted). Any statute that ran afoul of any one of those tenets would be held to violate the Establishment Clause. [¶ 40] In several cases following Lemon, the Court struck down, in whole or in part, state programs designed to assist parents with educational costs where the programs at issue allowed that assistance to benefit religious schools. During this period, the Court invalidated New York tax laws that provided direct money grants to qualifying nonpublic schools for maintenance and repair of facilities and equipment; a tuition reimbursement plan for parents of children attending nonpublic schools; and tax relief to parents failing to qualify for tuition reimbursement. See Committee for Pub. Educ. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 (1973). It then struck down a Pennsylvania law that provided for loans of educational materials and equipment directly to religious schools, see Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 44 L.Ed.2d 217 (1975), and invalidated a program that placed public school teachers in religious school classrooms for certain classes, see School Dist. v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373, 105 S.Ct. 3216, 87 L.Ed.2d 267 (1985). [¶ 41] In his opinion regarding the constitutionality of the tuition program, the Attorney General relied heavily on Committee for Pub. Educ. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 93 S.Ct. 2955 (1973) in determining that including religious schools in the tuition system violated the Establishment Clause. The Nyquist Court found that although the programs had secular purposes in protecting the health and safety of private school students, they failed the effect prong of the Lemon test because the vast majority of the money went to religious institutions. See id. at 775-83, 93 S.Ct. 2955. [20] The Court also held that [i]n the absence of an effective means of guaranteeing that the state aid derived from public funds will be used exclusively for secular, neutral, and nonideological purposes, it is clear from our cases that direct aid in whatever form is invalid. Id. at 780, 93 S.Ct. 2955 (emphasis added). Furthermore, the Court concluded that the result was the same whether the funds were channeled to the parents or paid directly to the schools. [21] See id. at 785-88, 93 S.Ct. 2955. [¶ 42] Application of the concepts set forth in Nyquist led to the inevitable conclusion that Maine's all encompassing tuition program violated the Establishment Clause. Before the enactment of the exclusion, the tuition program required school administrative districts to pay tuition directly to the private schoolprecisely the direct aid prohibited by Nyquist. If the tuition was not paid by the district within 30 days of the billing date, the State paid the bill and deducted that amount from the state school subsidy to the school administrative unit owing tuition. See 20-A M.R.S.A. § 5810(2). There were no safeguards within Maine's system to ensure that state funding was only used for secular purposes. The amount of the tuition was intended to cover the average per-student cost, which could include expenses for religious classes, religious studies, and religious events. See 20-A M.R.S.A. § 5805(1). The tuition was paid in a lump sum directly to the religious school of a parent's choice. Thus, the State's tuition system, as written prior to the 1981 amendment, would have been found in violation of the Establishment Clause.