Public Aid to Religious Schools
Constitutional Restrictions and Legal Precedent
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The U.S. Supreme Court has construed the Establishment Clause, in general, to mean that government is prohibited from sponsoring or financing religious instruction or indoctrination. But the Court has drawn a constitutional distinction between aid that flows directly to sectarian schools and aid that benefits such schools indirectly as the result of voucher or tax benefit programs. Direct Aid With respect to direct aid, the Court has typically applied the tripartite test it first articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The…
