Court Opinion

ID: 9687963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:55:40.816523+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:33.800414
License: Public Domain

White, C. J.,
dissenting.
Article VII, section 11, of the Constitution of the State of Nebraska provides: “Neither the State Legislature nor any county, city or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation from any public fund, or grant any public land in aid of any sectarian or denominational school or college, or any educational institution which is not exclusively owned and controlled by the *6State or a governmental, subdivision thereof(Emphasis supplied.)
We have before us in this case the issue of whether federal aid extended under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (hereinafter referred to as ESEA), Pub. L. 89-10, 79 Stat. 27 (1965), 20 U. S. C. 884 (Supp., 1965), is an impermissible violation in contravention of the above provisions of the Constitution of the State of Nebraska and the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Broadly stated, the issue involved here centers around the historic constitutional requirement that government and religion remain separate, and in particular, whether the Constitution of the United. States and the Constitution of the State of Nebraska permit public aid to' sectarian schools.
At the outset, it should be made clear that what we are dealing with here is not simply a lease or an arrangement between a public and private .school for the use of space or physical equipment in any building. The attempt to diminish or evade the issue before us in this case can be clearly exposed by a recital of how this case arose: Section 205(a), 79 Stat. 30, 31 (1965) states: “A local educational agency may receive a basic grant under this title for any fiscal year only upon application therefor approved by the appropriate State educational agency * * In hopes of securing a federal grant, the School District of Hartington, Nebraska, made application to the Director of Title I, ESEA, Nebraska State Department of Education, in the fall of 1969 for a Title I project to instruct qualifying students in remedial reading and remedial mathematics. The application’s cover letter begins by stating, “Within our ESEA Title I project for fiscal year 1970, there has been included a Lease Agreement Contract between the Hartington Public School and Cedar Catholic High School of Hartington for facilities -in which to conduct our Title I project * * The proposed project would have had the qualifying public and private school students attend remedial *7reading and mathematics classes in: two classrooms located in Cedar Catholic High School. Qualifying public and private school students would attend health and industrial arts classes in the public high school classrooms. Due to a shortage of classrooms in the public schools and the absence of any other practical location for the Title I programs, the School District “incorporated” the lease agreement into their Title I project for 1970.
Upon the appellants’ refusal to approve the Hartington project, the School District of Hartington brought a mandamus action in the district court for Lancaster County. The School District sought to compel the appellants to approve the Hartington Title I project. The district court found that “the program for courses in remedial reading and remedial mathematics * * * including the use of leased classroom space for part of said program * * * does not violate the Constitutions of Nebraska, or the United States, and should be approved * sí? sj? 3)
One further word about the precise issue presented in this case. The weakness of appellee’s position upon the state-church issue is apparent from the strenuous attempt throughout this litigation to constrict the issue to whether the lease of the physical classroom space from a parochial school is unconstitutional. We do not even need to peer through the form to .see the substance of this scheme. It is apparent on the face of it. The lease does not stand alone at any time. It is included, it is true, in the overall Title I project application submitted by the School District, and although the lease was not directly related to the health and industrial arts classes that were to be held within the public school, the lease obviously is an integral part of the entire project. If nothing else, the lease was essential to the operation of the remedial reading and mathematics aspect of the project, and without the need to conduct remedial reading and mathematics classes there was no reason for the lease agreement. The only purpose of the application, *8and the only purpose of the scheme, is to channel federal and state appropriated funds into the assistance of the education program of nonpublic schools, hopefully without getting involved in church-state questions. It is enough to say that the drafters of the ESEA in 1965, in attempting to weave their way through the United States Supreme Court’s decisions dealing with the church-state issue, have set up a vaguely defined corridor through which funds may be channeled tO' assist nonpublic schools. For an analysis of this aspect of the act, see, Senate Rep. No. 146, 89th Cong., 1st Sess. (1965); Drinan, Reflections on the Implications of Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, 15 Cath. Law 179 (1969); Comment, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 and the First Amendment, 41 Ind. L. J. 302 (1966); Feikens, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act - The Implications of the Trust-Fund Theory for the Church-State Questions Raised by Title I, 65 Mich. L. Rev. 1184 (1965).
Federal constitutional questions, aside, I do not think it is an over-simplification to simply state that the answer to our problem in this case lies in the clear, unequivocal, unambiguous, and forceful language of our state Constitution. I repeat, it says: “Neither the State Legislature nor any county, city or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation from any public fund, or grant any public land in aid of any .sectarian or denominational school or college, or any educational institution which is not exclusively owned and controlled by the state or a governmental subdivision thereof.” (Emphasis, supplied.) These words in our Constitution say what they mean and they mean what they say. They do not draw any distinction between sectarian or secular instruction, they do not permit any shadowy distinctions as to type of instruction, personnel of teachers, or any of the other distinctions and principles sought to be applied in the numerous cases under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Unde*9niably the grant of these funds requires state action. The application was to the state agency. ESEA requires specific authorization by the state. The State Board of Education is an arm of the State Legislature. Certainly nobody could argue that the proposed application and grant did not come squarely within the language of the “the State Legislature nor any county, city or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation from any public fund, or grant any public land in aid of any sectarian, * * *.” The crucial fact in this case is the ESEA program, and the application filed herein by the Hartington School District requires a state agency to act and to make an appropriation, regardless of whether the funds are considered state or federal in nature. It is inconceivable to me, that, according to the dictates of Article VII, section 11, of the Constitution of the State of Nebraska, that this act of appropriation directly “in aid of” a sectarian school could be declared constitutional.
The State of Idaho has a constitutional provision almost identical to ours. In Epeldi v. Engelking, 94 Idaho 390, 488 P. 2d 860, the Supreme Court of Idaho, in striking down a provision for bussing parochial students, under its state constitutional provision, said as follows: “This section in explicit terms prohibits any appropriation by the legislature or others (county, city, etc.) or payment from any public fund, anything in aid of any church or to help support or sustain any sectarian school, etc. By the phraseology and diction of this provision it is our conclusion that the framers of our constitution intended to more positively enunciate the separation between church and state than did the framers of the United States Constitution. Had that not been their intention there would have been no need for this particular provision, because under Idaho Const, art 1, § 3, the exercise and enjoyment of religious faith was guaranteed (comparable to the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution) and it further provides no person could *10be required to attend religious services or support any particular religion, or pay tithes against his consent (comparable to the establishment clause of the First Amendment).
“The Idaho Const, art. 9, § 5, requires this court to focus its attention on the legislation involved to determine whether it is in ‘aid of any church’ and whether it is ‘to help support or sustain’ any church affiliated school. The requirements of this constitutional provision thus eliminate as a test for determination of the constitutionality of the statute, both the ‘child benefit’ theory discussed in Everson v. Board, supra, and the standard of Board of Education v. Allen, supra, i. e., whether the legislation has a ‘secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion.’ In this context, while we recognize that even though this legislation does assist the students to attend parochial schools, it also aids those schools by bringing to them those very students for whom the parochial schools were established. Thus, it is our conclusion' that this legislation, the effect of which would be to aid the school, is prohibited under the provisions of Idaho Const. Art. 9, § 5.”
We need inquire no further. It is clear that the scheme and plan involved in this case goes much further than mere bussing, because it provides for direct payments of money to assist the education of secular or private school students. The overwhelming authority from states with similar state constitutional provisions is to the same effect. See, Matthews v. Quinton, 362 P. 2d 932 (Alaska, 1961); Epeldi v. Engelking, supra; .Spears v. Honda, 51 Hawaii 1, 449 P. 2d 130 (1969); Opinion of the Justices, 216 A. 2d 668 (Del., 1966); State ex rel. Reynolds v. Nusbaum, 17 Wis. 2d 148, 115 N. W. 2d 761 (1962); Judd v. Board of Education, 278 N. Y. 200, 15 N. E. 2d 576, 118 A. L. R. 789 (1938).
We turn now to the issue, which is before us, under *11the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. First, it seems to me that the United States Supreme Court in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 91 S. Ct. 2105, 29 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1971), had held that the Ever-son case, permitting school bussing, was the trail’s end with regard to what is not aiding in the establishment of religion. In that case, the court pointed out that the “verge” reached in Everson had “become the platform for yet further steps,” leading to dangerous developments of federal constitutional theory. In my opinion, the principles and rationale of Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, is decisive of the issue here in the present case. Lemon was a grouping of three state school aid cases, and the Supreme Court applied the “entanglement” test which it had formulated in Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U. S. 664, 90 S. Ct. 1409, 25 L. Ed. 2d 697 (1970). The court said: “* * * the questions are whether the involvement is excessive, and whether it is a continuing one calling for official and continuing surveillance leading to an impermissible degree of entanglement.” The court held two statutory school aid plans unconstitutional under the religion clauses of the First Amendment since both. plans involved excessive entanglement of church and state even though both promoted ■ secular legislative purposes. The opinion of Chief Justice Burger stressed the divisive political potential of both state programs, “one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intented to protect.”
I can see no difference, in principle, between the Lemon case and the case we have before us. Although the Lemon case deals with state statutory aid programs to nonpublic schools, it seems clear that the present case is directly analogous, and that the ESE A program with state required action, has the same “self-perpetuating and self-expanding propensities which provide a warning signal against entanglement between government and religion.” See Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra. *12We must remember that the prohibition of religious entanglement under the First Amendment is a two-edged sword. The Supreme Court of the United States spelled this principle out clearly in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 259, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 1591, 10 L. Ed. 2d 844 (1963). What it said is as follows: “* * * government and religion have discreet interests which are mutually best served when each avoids’ too close a proximity to the other. It is not only the nonbeliever who fears the injection' of sectarian doctrines and controversies into the civil policy, but in as high degree it is the devout believer who fears the secularization of a creed which becomes too deeply involved with and dependent upon the government.”
It would seem that the question under the federal Constitution involved in this case has been resolved in Sanders v. Johnson, 403 U. S. 955, 91 S. Ct. 2292, 29 L. Ed. 2d 865, where the Supreme Court of the United States, subsequent to the opinion in Lemon, affirmed a lower federal court decision involving a Connecticut state statute authorizing the state to contract with parochial schools for the purchase by the state of secular educational services for the parochial schools. The Supreme Court affirmed the holding of the lower court that such a statute was unconstitutional. The lower federal court, in Johnson v. Sanders, 319 F. Supp. 421 (1970), prior to the decision in Lemon, and apparently anticipating it, said as follows: “The State could not itself maintain an educational establishment providing secular classes closely integrated with religious instruction,-symbols, and observances — even if the latter were the sole responsibility of private groups — in the same buildings during regular school hours. * * * even if a state does not itself formally maintain a school which teaches religion or applies sectarian admission standards, a law may specify types of public identification and involvement with such a school which cause an ‘excessive government entanglement’ with the religious *13aspects of the institution, thereby advancing or inhibiting religion. * * * A constitutional funding measure requires not just artful legislative language, but also the creation of an administrative mechanism through which government may restrict its spending to a readily identifiable secular educational function without ‘continuing surveillance leading to an impermissible degree of entanglement.’ ”
In summary, it seems to me, over and beyond the other reasons touched on in this dissent, that this act, this scheme, this procedure requires that the state will be amidst the daily affairs of a religious school. It must be remembered that we are not dealing with something as simple as a bus ride, or a textbook, or a mere lease agreement; we have here an innovative program of noble purpose and it carries with it those highly feared risks of conflict and divisiveness which history has shown follow any close proximity between government and religion.
If this statute, and the state action asked to be taken under it, is constitutionally permissible, then I see no obstruction or impediment to the state and the federal government taking complete and literal control of the contracting schools and making their entire secular curricula part of its public system for all purposes, including the hiring of teachers, the renting of the physical facilities, and perhaps the admission of students. Such action' plainly runs afoul of the state and federal Constitutions. We must remember that the real test of constitutionality is not what is actually done under the act but what the act authorizes.
The act and the scheme here, in my opinion, are the beginning of the possible creation of state financed, and therefore extensively state regulated, entanglement in sectarian school affairs. The state, in order to comply with the federal act, is required to set up a “partition” between the secular and religious activities of parochial schools and to take substantial responsibility for *14the secular portion of parochial school students’ education. I am firmly of the opinion that this runs afoul of the basic principle of the establishment clause test in the federal Constitution that neither the federal government nor the state can engage in legislation or action which advances or inhibits religion.
Spencer, J., joins in this dissent.