Court Opinion

ID: 9425751
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:15:45.139755+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:57.355821
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
concurring.
The Court holds that under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended, 20 U. S. C. § 241a et seq., federal courts may not ignore state-law prohibitions against the use of publicly employed teachers in private schools, ante, at 416-417, that Title I does not mandate on-the-premises instruction in private schools, ante, at 419, and that Title I does not require that the services to be provided in private schools be identical in all respects to those offered in public schools. Ante, at 420-421. It is thus unnecessary to decide whether the assignment of publicly employed teachers to provide instruction in sectarian schools would contravene the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Ante, at 415. On that basis, I join the Court’s opinion. I would have serious misgivings about the constitutionality of a statute that required the utilization of public school teachers in sectarian schools. See Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756 (1973).
Mr. Justice White,
concurring in the judgment.
As I read the majority opinion, the Court understands well enough that Title I funds are being used in Missouri *429to pay the salaries of teachers giving special instruction on public school premises, that the State is obligated to furnish comparable services to private schools, and that the State has not satisfied the comparability requirement. It must do so if it is to continue to use Title I funds in the manner they are now being used.
The Court intimates no opinion as to whether using federal funds to pay teachers giving special instruction on private school premises would be constitutional. It suggests, however, that there may be other ways of satisfying the comparability requirement that the State should consider; and unless the State is being asked to chase rainbows, it is implied that there are programs and services comparable to on-the-premises' instruction that the State could furnish private schools without violating the First Amendment. I would have thought that any such arrangement would be impermissible under the Court’s recent cases construing the Establishment Clause. Not having joined those opinions, I am pleasantly surprised by what appears to be a suggestion that federal funds may in some respects be used to finance nonsectarian instruction of students in private elementary and secondary schools. If this is the case, I suggest that the Court should say so expressly. Failing that, however, I concur in the judgment.