Opinion ID: 771401
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: whether the aid creates an excessive entanglement between government and religion.

Text: 88 See id. at 234. 89 Using this modified Lemon test, the Agostini Court found constitutional a federally mandated New York program that sent public school teachers into private parochial schools to provide remedial education to eligible children. Under the program, children meeting the eligibility requirements received the services, whether they attended a private or public school. See id. at 232. The Agostini Court concluded that programs in which money ultimately flows to a private, religious school based on the 'genuinely independent and private choices of' individuals do not violate the Establishment Clause.Id. at 226 (quoting Witters, 474 U.S. at 488). 90 Finally, in Mitchell v. Helms, 120 S. Ct. 2530 (2000), a plurality opinion written by Justice Thomas, the Court upheld the constitutionality of a federally mandated Louisiana program where educational materials were loaned to public and private schools, both religious and nonreligious. Justice Thomas emphasized that the statute did not have an impermissible effect because the principles of neutrality and private choice, and their relationship to each other [that] were [also] prominent in the Court's decisions in Agostini, Zobrest, Witters, and Mueller were present. Id. at 2542.