Opinion ID: 6933656
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Does Chapter 2 funding for parochial schools violate the Establishment Clause?

Text: The District has participated in the Chapter 2 program since the 1982-83 school year. The District annually requests a Chapter 2 grant by submitting to the California State Board of Education an “Application for Funding Consolidated Categorical Aid Programs.” In the 1988-89 school year, approximately seventy-four percent of the Chapter 2 benefits went to public schools and twenty-six percent went to private schools. Private schools receive Chapter 2 materials and equipment based on the per capita number of students at each school. (In that year, there were over 23,000 students in private schools.) The District was awarded $903,028 in Chapter 2 funds and set aside $195,482 for materials and equipment to private schools. Although the parties did not provide a specific figure, a substantial number of the nonpublic school students attended secular private schools. Thirty-two of the eighty-seven nonpublic schools participating in the Chapter 2 program are secular. In order to receive Chapter 2 materials, private schools submit “needs assessment” forms to the District that describe the needs of their student population and how those needs can be met through the utilization of Chapter 2 funds. The District screens each school’s order to ensure that all materials are secular in nature. Each private school signs a certification that the materials and equipment will be used for secular, neutral, and nonideological purposes, and that they will supplement and not supplant the level of services that would be provided in the absence of Chapter 2 benefits. The District is also required to provide the State Board assurances that it will comply with Chapter 2 and its regulations, including that Chapter 2 services, equipment, supplies, and. instructional materials will be supplementary to the basic education of the private schools. When the Chapter 2 funds are received, the District directly purchases the materials for the private schools; title to all materials and equipment remains with the District. No funds are provided directly to the private schools. Since 1982, private schools have received library books, textbooks, videos, overhead projectors, movie and slide projectors and projection stands, television sets, record players, cassette recorders, VCR’s, video cameras, “listening centers,” globes and maps, microscopes and other lab equipment, computer equipment, musical equipment, stereo systems, and desks and tables. Expenditures were not allowed for materials to be used in religious instruction or worship, or materials for administration or office use. In the 1989-90 school year, private schools received only prescreened library books and prescreened instructional and reference materials. Although private schools had previously been provided with “locked” computer hardware and software that could not be diverted to religious use, 13 there were no funds available for computers in 1989-90.
The purpose of Chapter 2 is to improve resources available to schools to increase the quality of education. Specifically, it is (1) to provide the initial funding to enable State and local educational agencies to implement promising educational programs ...; (2) to provide a continuing source of innovation, educational improvement, and support for library and instructional materials; (3) to meet the special educational needs of at risk and high cost students ...; (4) to enhance the quality of teaching and learning ...; and (5) to allow State and local educational agencies to meet their educational needs and priorities for targeted assistance. 20 U.S.C. § 2911(b). The improvement of education is a valid secular purpose. Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. at 363, 95 S.Ct. at 1762. 2. Does Chapter 2 have a primary or principal effect that advances or inhibits religion? In Board of Educ. v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968), the Supreme Court upheld the loaning of state-owned textbooks to parochial school students. Id. at 248, 88 S.Ct. at 1929, Meek and Wol-man, however, drew a distinction between providing textbooks and providing other instructional materials — such as maps, overhead projectors, and lab equipment — to paro-ehial schools or their students. Meek, 421 U.S. at 362-63, 95 S.Ct. at 1761-62; Wolman, 433 U.S. at 237, 251, 97 S.Ct. at 2600, 2607. Subsequent Supreme Court eases— Regan, Ball, and Zobrest — have clarified the holdings of Meek and Wolman, and rendered untenable the thin distinction between textbooks and other instructional materials. We read Allen, Regan, Ball, and Zobrest as controlling our decision in the instant case, and we hold that under Chapter 2, the loaning of neutral, secular equipment and instructional materials to parochial schools does not have the primary or principal effect of advancing religion. In Allen, the Court upheld a law requiring public school authorities to lend textbooks, free of charge, to all students of public and private schools. Such a program did not serve to advance religion because, inter alia, “[t]he law merely makes available to all children the benefits of a general program to lend school books free of charge.” Allen, 392 U.S. at 243, 88 S.Ct. at 1926. The fact that “free books make it more likely that some children choose to attend a sectarian school ... does not alone demonstrate an unconstitutional degree of support for a religious institution.” Id. at 244, 88 S.Ct. at 1926-27. Allen thus rests on the robust principle that “the Establishment Clause does not prevent a State from extending the benefits of state laws to all citizens without regard for then-religious affiliation.” Id. at 242, 88 S.Ct. at 1926 (citing Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947) (upholding New Jersey law that reimbursed parents for expenses incurred in busing their children to parochial schools as part of a general program under which New Jersey reimbursed parents of pupils bused to both public and nonpublic schools)). In Meek, the Supreme Court departed from the principle that state benefits provided to all citizens without regard to religion are constitutional. The Court upheld the provision of textbooks to parochial school students, 421 U.S. at 362, 95 S.Ct. at 1761-62, but struck down the program which loaned instructional materials and equipment, including maps, charts and laboratory supplies, to parochial schools. Id. at 365-66, 95 S.Ct. at 1763. The Court reasoned that because “it would simply ignore reality to attempt to separate secular educational functions from the predominantly religious role performed by many of Pennsylvania’s church-related elementary and secondary schools,” id. at 365, 95 S.Ct. at 1763, “[substantial aid to the educational function of such schools, accordingly, necessarily results in aid to the sectarian school enterprise as a whole.” Id. at 366, 95 S.Ct. at 1763-64. In Wolman, the Court reaffirmed Meek’s holding that the distinction between textbooks and other instructional materials and equipment is constitutionally significant. 433 U.S. at 250-51, 97 S.Ct. at 2606-07. The Court allowed the provision of textbooks to parochial school students, but prohibited the provision of neutral and secular instructional materials and equipment, such as tape recorders, record players, maps, and science kits, to the same students. Id. at 236-38, 248-51, 97 S.Ct. at 2599-60, 2605-07. In reaffirming Meek’s holding, however, Wolman undermined Meek’s rationale. Meek rested on the principle that any state aid to the educational functions of a sectarian school is forbidden because “ ‘the secular education those schools provide goes hand in hand with the religious mission that is the only reason for the schools’ existence. Within the institution, the two are inextricably intertwined.’” Meek, 421 U.S. at 366, 95 S.Ct. at 1764 (citing Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. at 657, 91 S.Ct. at 2133). Wolman eviscerated this principle by holding as constitutional a statute under which the State prepared and graded tests in secular subjects for all schools, including parochial schools, thereby relieving parochial schools of the cost of those functions. Wolman, 433 U.S. at 238-41, 97 S.Ct. at 2600-01. Wolman also noted that there is no constitutional distinction between providing instructional materials and equipment directly to the parochial school, as opposed to providing the instructional materials and equipment to the children, or parents of the children, attending the parochial school. See Wolman, 433 U.S. at 248, 97 S.Ct. at 2606 (“[T]he material at issue under the Ohio statute are loaned to the pupil or his parent. In our view, however, it would exalt form over substance if this distinction were found to justify a result different from that in Meek ”). Taken together, Meek and Wolman thus stood for the thin distinction — unmoored from any Establishment Clause principles — that state loans to parochial schools of instructional materials and equipment impermissibly advances religion, but state preparation and grading of tests and state loans of textbooks do not. 14 In Committee for Public Education v. Regan, 444 U.S. 646, 100 S.Ct. 840, 63 L.Ed.2d 94 (1980), the Supreme Court recognized this weak distinction and clarified that the provision of instructional materials and equipment to parochial schools is not always prohibited. The Regan Court upheld a law reimbursing parochial schools for the costs of administering tests required by the State. Distinguishing Meek, the Court stated, [A] majority of the Court, including the author of Meek v. Pittenger, upheld in Wolman a state statute under which the State, by preparing and grading tests in secular subjects, relieved sectarian schools of the cost of these functions, functions that they otherwise would have had to perform themselves and that were intimately connected with the educational processes. Yet the Wolman opinion at no point suggested that this holding was inconsistent with the decision in Meek. Unless the majority in Wolman was silently disavowing Meek, in whole or in part, that case was simply not understood by this Court to stand for the broad proposition that [“any aid to even secular educational functions of a sectarian school is forbidden, or more broadly still, that any aid to a sectarian school is suspect since its religious teaching is so pervasively intermixed with each and every one of its activities”]. Regan, 444 U.S. at 661, 100 S.Ct. at 850. The Court went on to state, “ ‘nor did Meek hold[ ] that all loans of secular instructional material and equipment’ inescapably have the effect of direct advancement of religion.” Id. at 661-62, 100 S.Ct. at 850-51 (quoting Wolman, 433 U.S. at 263, 97 S.Ct. at 2613-14 (Powell, J., concurring)). Regan thus instructs us that the difference between textbooks and other instructional equipment and materials, such as science kits and maps, is not of constitutional significance. Rather than adopt the rigid “textbooks/other instructional materials” distinction made constitutionally suspect by Regan, we look to the underlying principle animating Establishment Clause jurisprudence: government neutrality towards religion. As noted earlier in this opinion, recent Supreme Court cases teach us that the touchstone of Establishment Clause analysis is whether the government is acting in a neutral manner towards religion. See, e.g., Zobrest, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2467 (stating that “[w]hen the government offers a neutral service on the premises of a sectarian school as part of a general program that is in no way skewed towards religion, it follows under our prior decisions that provision of that service does not offend the Establishment Clause”) (internal quotations omitted); Ball, 473 U.S. at 382, 105 S.Ct. at 3221-22 (stating that the Court consistently requires the government “to maintain a course of neutrality among religions, and between religion and nonreli-gion”); see also Committee for Public Educ. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 792-93, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 2975, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 (1973) (stating that “[a] proper respect for both the Free Exercise and the Establishment Clauses compels the State to pursue a course of ‘neutrality’ toward religion”); Board of Educ. of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, -U.S.-,-, 114 S.Ct. 2481, 2487, 129 L.Ed.2d 546 (1994) (same). Government neutrality becomes suspect when, in practical effect, the governmental aid is targeted at or disproportionately benefits religious institutions, or when, in symbolic effect, the governmental aid creates a symbolic union between church and state. We therefore must analyze (1) whether the Chapter 2 benefit at issue is a general welfare benefit neutrally available to a broad class of people without reference to religion, Zobrest, — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2466, and (2) whether the benefit, even though generally available, creates a symbolic union of church and state. Ball, 473 U.S. at 389, 105 S.Ct. at 3226. In applying these factors, we find that the primary effect of Chapter 2 neither advances nor inhibits religion. Chapter 2 benefits are neutrally available without regard to religion. In 1988-89, seventy-four percent of the benefits went to public schools. See Walker v. San Francisco Unified School Dist., 741 F.Supp. 1386, 1404 (N.D.Cal.1990). Of the remaining twenty six percent, a substantial amount went to nonreligious private schools. Indeed, more than thirty percent of the private schools are nonreligious. Thus, the overwhelming percentage of beneficiaries are nonparochial schools and their students. Moreover, in 1989-90, the actual dollar amount budgeted to each student from Chapter 2 funds was a scant $6.65. Given such a de minimis amount of funding, it is no surprise that Chapter 2 funds are supplementary and cannot supplant the basic educational services of the religious schools. 15 Chapter 2 thus does not act as a subterfuge to channel money to religious schools, but rather, it resembles other governmental programs deemed constitutional due to the general applicability of benefits conferred. See e.g., Mueller, 463 U.S. at 398-99, 103 S.Ct. at 3068-69 (upholding state tax deductions for educational expenses); Everson v. Board of Educ. of the Township of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 16, 67 S.Ct. 504, 511, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947) (upholding reimbursement of school bus fares for parochial school students); Witters, 474 U.S. at 487-88, 106 S.Ct. at 751-52 (upholding scholarship to seminary student). As the Court recently stated in Kiryas Joel, “we have frequently relied explicitly on the general availability of any benefit provided religious groups or individuals in turning aside Establishment Clause challenges.” Kiryas Joel, — U.S. at-, 114 S.Ct. at 2491. Although it is possible that Chapter 2 benefits — even though generally available to all — will be improperly diverted by the parochial schools, we emphasize that controls are in place to prevent Chapter 2 benefits from being diverted to religious instruction. The textbooks and other instructional materials are prescreened, and title to them remains in the public agency. 20 U.S.C. § 2972(e)(1). Moreover, parochial schools pledge not to use Chapter 2 materials for religious purposes, and the District makes yearly monitoring visits. Finally, all services provided to private school students under Chapter 2 must be provided by employees of a public agency or through contract by the public agency with persons who, in the provision of those services, are independent of the private school and of any religious organizations. 20 U.S.C. § 2972(c)(2); 34 C.F.R. § 298.31(a)(4). We find that these controls adequately safeguard Chapter 2 benefits from improper diversion to religious use. Indeed, monitoring by the District has not uncovered a single instance of improper diversion, and plaintiffs have offered no evidence that any diversion has occurred. Under these circumstances, preventing parochial schools from participating in the generally available Chapter 2 program, based solely on the mere possibility that Chapter 2 benefits will be diverted, would unfairly discriminate against religion. With respect to the symbolic union concern, we find that Chapter 2 does not create a symbolic union between church and state when it provides for the loaning of instructional materials and equipment to parochial schools. In Zobrest, the Court allowed the state to place a public employee in a sectarian school. The Court noted, “the Establishment Clause lays down no absolute bar to the placing of a public employee in a sectarian school.” — U.S. at -, 113 S.Ct. at 2469. If having a public employee in the parochial school classroom does not “present[ ] the students with a graphic symbol of the ‘concert or union or dependency’ of church and state,” Ball, 473 U.S. at 391, 105 S.Ct. at 3226 (internal citation omitted), then certainly having religiously neutral material and equipment in the same classroom does not create a symbolic union either. Moreover, in Zobrest, the interpreter provided translation for all classroom instruction, even if the instruction was religiously based. Here, the parochial schools certify that the equipment will not be used for religious instruction. We find no symbolic union distinction between providing textbooks and human interpreters, as opposed to providing instructional materials and equipment, to parochial schools. Plaintiffs argue, however, that Meek and Wolman are indistinguishable from this case and should control our decision. We disagree. As noted above, Regan rejected the rigid, bright-line rule that a state may provide textbooks to parochial schools, but may never provide other instructional materials and equipment to such schools. Regan, 444 U.S. at 661, 100 S.Ct. at 850. Moreover, the statutes struck down in Meek and Wolman are fundamentally different from the Chapter 2 statute at issue here. The statute in Meek was not neutral because it provided close to $12 million in aid that was targeted directly at private schools, of which more than 75% were church-related. Meek, 421 U.S. at 364-65, 95 S.Ct. at 1762-63; see also Zobrest, — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2468 (noting that “[i]n Meek, we struck down a statute that, inter alia, provided ‘massive aid’ to private schools — more than 75% of which were church related_”). 16 Similarly, in Wolman, the statute was not neutral because it provided $88.8 million in aid that was targeted directly at private schools, of which 96% were church-related and 92% were Catholic. Wolman, 433 U.S. at 233, 97 S.Ct. at 2598. Here, seventy-four percent of Chapter 2 benefits went to public schools. Of the remaining twenty-six percent — which was $195,482 in the 1988-89 school year — a substantial portion was allocated to nonreligious private schools. Indeed, over thirty percent of the private schools under the Chapter 2 program are nonreligious. Thus, unlike the statutes at issue in Meek and Wolman, Chapter 2 is a neutral, generally applicable statute that provides benefits to all schools, of which the overwhelming beneficiaries are nonparo-chial schools. Chapter 2 does not act as a subterfuge to channel services to religious institutions, nor does it provide a symbolic benefit to religion. Rather, the primary effect of Chapter 2 is to improve education for all school children. Chapter 2 neither advances nor inhibits religion. 3. Does Chapter 2 create excessive entanglement between church and state? In order to ensure that the provision of Chapter 2 benefits remains neutral, controls are in place to prevent Chapter 2 benefits from being diverted to religious instruction. Textbooks and other instructional materials are prescreened and title to them remains in the public agency; parochial schools pledge not to use Chapter 2 materials for religious purposes; the District makes yearly monitoring visits; and all services provided to private school students under Chapter 2 must be provided by employees of a public agency or through contract by the public agency with persons who, in the provision of those services, are independent of the private school and of any religious organizations. Plaintiffs argue that these controls result in excessive entanglement between church and state. We disagree. In Aguilar, the Court noted that the primary concern behind the excessive entanglement inquiry is that “the religious school ... must endure the ongoing presence of state personnel whose primary purpose is to monitor teachers and students in an attempt to guard against 'the infiltration of religious thought.” 473 U.S. at 412, 105 S.Ct. at 3238. Here, unlike a human teacher who may be susceptible to the subtle or overt pressure of a pervasive sectarian atmosphere, id. at 412, 105 S.Ct. at 3238, neutral instructional materials and equipment are “ ‘self-polie[ing], in that starting as secular, nonideologieal and neutral, they will not change in use.’ ” 17 Meek, 349 U.S. at 365, 95 S.Ct. at 1763 (citation omitted). Indeed, this neutral and self-policing character of the instructional materials and equipment allows the parochial school to “endure” only one visit from the District a year, rather than to “endure the ongoing presence of state personnel.” Moreover, in Bowen, the Court noted that governmental monitoring of grants does not amount to excessive entanglement when the grants are provided to religious organizations that are not “pervasively sectarian.” Bowen, 487 U.S. at 615, 108 S.Ct. at 2578. The “pervasively sectarian” distinction, however, has been diminished in the wake of Zobrest. In Zobrest, the Court did not find excessive governmental entanglement — indeed, the Court did not mention the third prong of Lemon — when it allowed the placement of a human interpreter in the pervasively sectarian environment of a parochial school classroom. — U.S. at-, 113 S.Ct. at 2469. We follow Zobrest’s lead and conclude that the Chapter 2 controls do not lead to excessive entanglement between church and state. Thus, Chapter 2 funding passes all three prongs of the Lemon test. Chapter 2’s valid secular purpose is the improvement of education; Chapter 2 does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion because it distributes benefits to all schools without reference to religion and does not create a symbolic union between church and state; and Chapter 2 does not create excessive entanglement between church and state. Chapter 2 funding does not violate the Establishment Clause.