Court Opinion

ID: 9430277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:24.059754+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:24.028966
License: Public Domain

*493Justice O’Connor,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.
I join Parts I and III of the Court’s opinion, and concur in the judgment. I also agree with the Court that both the purpose and effect of Washington’s program of aid to handicapped students are secular. As Justice Powell’s separate opinion persuasively argues, the Court’s opinion in Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388 (1983), makes clear that “state programs that are wholly neutral in offering educational assistance to a class defined without reference to religion do not violate the second part of the Lemon v. Kurtzman test, because any aid to religion results from the private decisions of beneficiaries.” Ante, at 490-491 (Powell, J., concurring) (footnote omitted). The aid to religion at issue here is the result of petitioner’s private choice. No reasonable observer is likely to draw from the facts before us an inference that the State itself is endorsing a religious practice or belief. See Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 690 (1984) (O’Connor, J., concurring).