Court Opinion

ID: 9685621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:53:07.426959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:40.833878
License: Public Domain

Adams, J.
(dissenting).
I
Free public education for all is a responsibility of the state. It is state business. Art 8, § 2, Constitution of 1963. Religion is the concern of each individual as he chooses to be so concerned and must not be interfered with by the state in any way. It is private business. Art 1, § 4, Constitution of 1963; First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Religions have flourished or waned according to the conscience of the individual and the strengths or weaknesses of the particular religion.
Some religions have provided private schools to teach and perpetuate a particular religion. Religious education is a support and an adjunct to the religion. Chapter 2 of the State School Aid Act, as added by PA 1970, No 100 (MCLA § 388.665 et seq.; Stat Ann § 15.1919[105] et seq.), proposes to augment the services of the public school system of this state by contractual agreements with private schools for the education of students in those schools in subjects taught in the public schools.
It is said that it is necessary to supplement the public school system because it cannot meet the challenge of serving the needs of the children of this state if the sectarian schools are forced to close. Beginning with such admission of failure, the state is asked to surrender its constitutionally-imposed duty of providing public schools for the children of *107this state to those religious groups that can afford private schools with the help of the public treasury.
Private sectarian schools are dual purpose institutions.1 As a condition of their existence and because they are so required by the state, they provide an education in subjects taught in public schools. Their primary purpose and the reason why they have come into being in lieu of the public school is to provide a religious education in a particular faith.2 The public schools cannot teach religion. McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), 333 US 203 (68 S Ct 461, 92 L Ed 649, 2 ALR2d 1338); School District of Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), 374 US 203 (83 S Ct 1560, 10 L Ed 2d 844). Consequently, the child who is taught in the public schools must be guided by his parents or his church or himself or look elsewhere in choosing his religion.
The child taught in a private sectarian school receives an education as provided by the public schools and a religious education in the faith of a particular religion. Such religious advocacy places the school beyond the pale of assistance from the public purse. Art 1, § 4, Constitution of 1963, states: “No money shall be appropriated or drawn from the treasury for the benefit of any religious sect or society * ** * .” What the state cannot do in its public schools — teach religion — it cannot do by indirection in private schools, nor can money be appropriated *108to private schools whose primary purpose is the teaching of religion since this obviously benefits a religious sect or society.
II
Chapter 2 will cause “an excessive government entanglement with religion.” Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970), 397 US 664 (90 S Ct 1409, 25 L Ed 2d 697). In that case, the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking through Chief Justice Burger, said (p 675):
“Obviously a direct money subsidy would be a relationship pregnant with involvement and, as with most governmental grant programs, could encompass sustained and detailed administrative relationships for enforcement of statutory or administrative standards * # #
Chapter 2 provides for yearly application for funds (§ 55[c]). It contemplates an annual appropriation from the general fund to the Department of Education (§57). The sum so appropriated is to be used by the Department of Education to purchase from eligible units educational services (§59). Within the limit of the appropriation for a particular year, the superintendent is required to pay to eligible units, in quarterly installments, a percentage of the salaries of certified lay teachers within each teaching unit. If total actual cost of service rendered by an individual teacher exceeds actual cost of comparable service in comparative public schools, the State Board of Education must disapprove the total actual cost as to such teacher and make no further payment until a redetermination that the total actual cost does not exceed the total actual cost of comparable service in such public schools. When a statewide budget system becomes operational, *109amounts paid for salaries must not exceed 75% of the salary allowances adopted by the legislature for comparable professionals in local school district budgets (§60). Prior to the first day of the quarter for which payments are due, eligible units must certify a list of lay teachers to the superintendent who must make certain determinations with regard to the allocation of salary for each teacher. The superintendent must prepare appropriate vouchers and the State Treasurer must pay to the eligible units in accordance with the same (§61). The eligible units must maintain accounting systems to enable the department at all times to ascertain that the allowances by the state were in fact used to pay the certified lay teachers (§ 62). The Department of Education is required to promulgate rules to carry out the provisions of Chapter 2 (§63). Anyone aggrieved by not having been declared an eligible unit may proceed as in a contested case (§ 64).
The above is but a brief summary of some of the provisions of Chapter 2. All of its provisions must be examined to determine the full extent of the pregnant involvement between private sectarian schools and the state. See especially sections 57 through 64.3
*110To say, as Justice T. M. Kavanagh states in Ms opinion, that the provisions of the act do not generally invest the state with new power or invest the eligible units with any new duties is to ignore the *111plain provisions of the act. To cite only one example, the act defines a certified lay teacher as follows:
“Sec. 55(h). ‘Certified lay teacher’ means a teacher who holds a valid certificate or permit issued hy the state to teach in the public schools of this state and is not a member of a religious order, who by vow or promise has chosen the religious life of poverty as a vocation or who wears any distinctive habit, or both.”
The state must, under this definition, determine what constitutes membership in a religious order and what constitutes a distinctive habit. The previous regulation of private schools referred to by Justice T. M. Kavanagh is of quite a different sort, being designed to require private schools to meet the same standards as are imposed upon public schools.
In the case of DiCenso v. Robinson (D RI, 1970), 316 F Supp 112, a three-judge United States District Court, speaking through Judge Coffin, analyzed and applied the Federal standards to a situation similar to the one in this case, is summarized at US LW 2023 as follows:
“The appropriate standard to be used in this case is the purpose and effect test first enunciated in Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 US 203 (1963): ‘[W]hat 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 the legislative power as circumscribed by the Constitution. That is to say 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.’ The purpose of the statute in this case was not intended to advance or interfere with reli*112gion. The quality of education in the non-public schools is a legitimate legislative concern.
“It is more difficult to determine the statute’s primary effect. The opponents of the statute argue that ‘primary’ means ‘essential’ or ‘fundamental.’ The statute’s defenders claim that ‘primary’ means ‘first in order of importance.’ The problem of definition is critical in this case since the statute has two significant effects: it aids the quality of secular education; it provides support to a religious enterprise. To examine only the activities of the teachers receiving aid and ignore the religious nature of the schools in which they teach is an unrealistic approach. The expenses of a religious institution may be apportioned in a variety of ways among its secular and religions activities, and sophisticated bookkeeping could pave the way for almost total subsidy of religious institution by assigning the bulk of the institution’s expenses to secular activities. Equally important, government aid to purely secular activity could nevertheless involve the state deeply in the workings of religious institutions.
“These deficiencies in Schempp were recognized in Walz v. New York City Tax Comm., 38 LW 4347 (U.S. 1970). That case stated that ‘[e]ach value judgment under the Religious Clauses must # * * turn on whether the particular acts in question are intended to establish or interfere with religious beliefs and practices or have the effect of doing* so.’
“This test refines Schempp by removing the suggestion that the single predominant effect of the statute may be isolated by a process of deductive reasoning based upon principle and precedent. Instead, the focus is on whether the statute fosters excessive entanglement between government and religious institutions and whether the degree of entanglement is likely to promote the substantive evils against which the First Amendment guards.
“Two significant dangers are apparent in the effect of this statute. The Act authorizes a subsidy *113which, unlike the exemption involved in Walz, must be annually renewed. Efforts of the various sects to obtain government financing of those few denominations that support school systems will inevitably excite bitter controversy. Also, significant state subsidies will inevitably produce significant state limitations on the freedom of denominational schools. A direct subsidy such as this requires greater administrative involvement between church and state than the payment of transportation costs involved in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), or the loaning of textbooks in Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 36 LW 4538 (1968). Under this statute, the commissioner of education could and must monitor parochial school expenditures and in close cases determine which spending is religious and which is secular. Equally important, this statute promotes a type of involvement that may significantly limit the internal freedom of parochial schools. The Act has already restricted the role of teachers. Some otherwise qualified teachers have stopped teaching courses in religion in order to qualify for statutory aid.” (Emphasis added.)
Ill
Finally, § 55(c) of Chapter 2 requires a certificate from each applying unit of compliance with § 2 of art 8 of the Constitution of 1963, the second sentence of which reads:
“Every school district shall provide for the education of its pupils without discrimination as to religion, creed, race, color or national origin.” (Emphasis added.)
If this requirement of § 55(c) of Chapter 2 is followed, it will nullify the stated purpose of the act as all private sectarian schools will be unable to participate in the benefits of the act. The hallmark of the private sectarian school is that it teaches a *114particular religion and maintains a particular religious environment. Such a school cannot provide for the education of its pupils “without discrimination as to religion,” religion being the very purpose for the school’s existence.
Chapter 2 is violative of the Michigan Constitution of 1963 and the Constitution of the United States.
Dethmers, J., concurred with Adams, J.
Kelly, J., took no part in the opinions filed in this case.

 This opinion refers to sectarian schools rather than private nonseetarian schools since Chapter 2, in § 56, speaks of the “sectarian function” of the private schools to be benefited.

 In the case of Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York (1970), 397 US 664 (90 S Ct 1409, 25 L Ed 2d 697), the court said (p 671):
“Surely, bus transportation and police protection to pupils who receive religious instruction 'aid’ that particular religion to maintain schools that plainly tend to assure future adherents to a particular faith by having control of their total education at an early age. No religious body that maintains schools would deny this as am, affirmative if not dominant policy of church schools.” (Emphasis added.)

 “See. 57. A sum necessary to fulfill the requirements of this chapter is appropriated from the general fund to the department of education for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1971, and for each fiscal year thereafter.
“Sec. 58. The sum so appropriated shall not exceed 2% of the total expenditures from state and local sources for the support of the free public elementary and secondary public education system in this state in the last preceding fiscal year, as determined or estimated when necessary, by the superintendent from records available to him and financial accounting records of public school units maintained in accordance with rules promulgated by the state department of education. Dor the purpose of such limitation, total expenditures shall not include the amounts expended for bus transportation and auxiliary services for public and nonpublic sehool students. This appropriation shall not exceed $22,000,000.00 during the 1970-71 school year beginning July 1, 1970.
“Sec. 59. The sum so appropriated shall be used by the depart*110ment of education to purchase from eligible units educational services in seeular subjects for the benefit of pupils attending eligible units.
“Sec. 60. Within the limit of the appropriation under this chapter for a particular fiscal year, the superintendent shall pay to an eligible unit, in quarterly installments, a sum not to exceed in the fiscal years 1970-71 and 1971-72, 50% of the salaries of certified lay teachers within sueh unit teaching seeular subjects and in the fiscal years thereafter 75% of such salaries. If the state board of education determines that if the total actual eosts of such educational service rendered by such individual is in excess of the total actual cost of comparable educational service rendered in approximately like circumstances of geographical area and economic condition in the public schools, the state board of education shall disapprove the total actual cost of such educational service rendered by sueh individual and no further payment shall be made to such individual until the state board of education makes a redetermination that the total actual cost for such educational service does not exceed the total actual cost of comparable educational service in sueh public schools. When a statewide budget system becomes operational, the amounts paid for sueh salaries shall not exceed 75% of the salary allowances adopted by the legislature for the purpose of determining sueh allowances for comparable professionals in local school district budgets in a particular fiscal year.
“Sec. 61. Prior to the first day of the quarter for which payments are due, an eligible unit shall certify to the superintendent on a form prepared by him, a list of certified lay teachers teaching secular subjects employed by such unit, the salaries and certification of each. Where the superintendent finds that a certified lay teacher is providing less than a full schedule of instruction in secular subjects, he shall allocate that part of the salary due sueh teacher for such instruction in seeular subjects and shall prepare a voucher for payment to the eligible unit for the allocated portion of the salary of such teacher as provided in section 60. The superintendent shall prepare appropriate vouchers and the state treasurer shall pay to the eligible units the aggregate allowance for the salaries for the teachers employed by the unit.
“Sec. 62. As an express condition of continued certification, the eligible units shall maintain such accounting systems as will enable the department at all times to ascertain that the allowances by the state were in fact used to pay the certified lay teachers teaching seeular subjects and not for any other purpose.
“See. 63. This chapter shall be administered by the department of education which shall promulgate rules to carry out the provisions of this chapter in accordance with and subject to the provisions of Act No. 306 of the Public Acts of 1969, being sections 24.201 to 24.313 of the Compiled Laws of 1948.
“Sec. 64. Prior to the beginning of each fiscal year the superintendent shall prepare a list of eligible units. Anyone aggrieved by *111not having been declared an eligible unit may proceed as in a contested ease within the meaning of Act No. 306 of the Public Acts of 1969 to have his status determined.”