Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Zelman v. Simmons-Harris'', 536 U.S. 639 (2002), was a 5–4 decision of the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
that upheld an
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
program that used
school vouchers A school voucher, also called an education voucher in a voucher system, is a certificate of government funding for students at schools chosen by themselves or their parents. Funding is usually for a particular year, term, or semester. In some cou ...
. The Court decided that the program did not violate the
Establishment Clause In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text ...
of the
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
, even if the vouchers could be used for private religious schools.


Background

The public schools in many of the poorer parts of
Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
were deemed failures, and the legislature enacted the Pilot Project Scholarship Program in an effort to address the problem.
Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
had been running the program, which allowed parents of qualified students in the
Cleveland School District The Cleveland School District (CSD) is a public school district based in Cleveland, Mississippi (USA). In addition to Cleveland, the district also serves the towns of Boyle, Renova, and Merigold. History In the post-''Brown v. Board of Edu ...
, from the 1996–97 school year, to use public money to pay for tuition at private schools in the program, which included religious schools. Of the 56 private schools that agreed to the program, 46 were sectarian. The program aimed to improve the low educational performance of the students in the school district. The program provided tuition vouchers for up to $2,250 a year to some parents of students in the school district to attend participating public or private schools in the city and neighboring suburbs. The program also allocated tutorial aid for students who remained in public schools. The vouchers were distributed to parents according to their financial need. The parents chose where to enroll their children. Since the number of students applying to the program greatly exceeded the number of vouchers available, recipients were chosen by
lottery A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...
from among the eligible families. In the 1999–2000 school year, 82% of the participating private schools had a religious affiliation. None of the adjacent suburban public schools joined the program. 96% of the students receiving vouchers were enrolled in religiously affiliated schools and 60% were from low-income families, at or below the poverty line. Participating schools were not permitted to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, or ethnic background. They are also not allowed to "advocate or foster unlawful behavior or teach hatred of any person or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion." A group of Ohio taxpayers then filed an action against Susan Zelman, the superintendent of public education in Ohio, by pleading that the program violated the Establishment Clause. Simmons-Harris, along with other residents of the Cleveland area, argued that the government "could not pay tuition for students to attend religious school." The local federal district court, in addition to the
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (in case citations, 6th Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * Eastern District of Kentucky * Western District of ...
, ruled in favor of Simmons-Harris. Zelman continued the case and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which sustained the voucher program.


First Amendment

The First Amendment protects the rights to
freedom of religion Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedom ...
and to freedom of expression from government interference. The First Amendment comes into play because the taxpayers of Ohio said that the program was a violation of the Establishment Clause, one of the two clauses of the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause guarantees freedom of religion and strictly prohibits the government from passing any legislation to establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another; it thus enforces the "separation of church and state." Since the program was designed to provide no incentive for religious private, secular private, or public schools, the taxpayers did not want their money to pay for the children who wanted religious schooling.


Majority opinion

Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the
majority opinion In law, a majority opinion is a judicial opinion agreed to by more than half of the members of a court. A majority opinion sets forth the decision of the court and an explanation of the rationale behind the court's decision. Not all cases have ...
. He declared that the school voucher program was not in violation of the Establishment Clause. He also deemed that government support for religion was constitutional if it did not occur ''de jure'' but ''de facto'' and also failed to specify or to encourage religious schools. Cleveland's program was declared to be religiously neutral and to be giving parents the benefit of true private choice. Rehnquist referred to the program's aims as strictly secular assistance for the poor, low-performing children, who would be otherwise stuck in the communities that were failed by the school district. Moreover, the issue was whether the school voucher program encouraged or inhibited religion directly. The Court used its precedent in '' Mueller v. Allen'' (1983) that aid could constitutionally be given to parents but not to schools. The Court found that there were thus no religious advances, in reference to the Establishment Clause. The likelihood of religious private schools in the area at the particular time and the decision of the student were not fundamental in the constitutionality of the voucher program. The vouchers were available to a general class of citizens who met the needed criteria and were given a personal, independent choice of voucher-accepting schools. As a state plan to make a better education readily available for poor students, there was no religious bias. Offering parents the choice to use the voucher for tutorial aid in public school, a scholarship for religious or nonreligious private schools or magnet schools, or enrollment in community college made no incentive to pick a religious private school. If parents wanted to pick religious schools for their children to attend, their choice should have no bearing on the government. The incidental advancement of a religious mission was reasonably inferable to the individual, not the government. The government's role ended with the expense of beliefs. Rehnquist continued that the program encouraged the true private choice of the family. By basing school vouchers strictly on the economic means of the student and on geographic location, religious concerns were factored. Another primary issue of the case concerned the 96% of scholarship recipients who attended religious private school. The Court noted that the program actually provided disincentives for religious schools: the private school received only half of that allocated to community schools and only a third of that allocated to magnet schools.


Concurring opinions

Justice O'Connor and Justice Thomas added comments when they both delivered a separate
concurring opinion In law, a concurring opinion is in certain legal systems a written opinion by one or more judges of a court which agrees with the decision made by the majority of the court, but states different (or additional) reasons as the basis for their deci ...
to the majority. O'Connor strongly believed that the program made no real and clear distinction between religious and non-religious schools and that both were rational education alternatives. O'Connor mentioned in her concurrence that many beneficiaries used community and private non-religious schools. That and the fact that true private school choice was available made the program not technically violate the Establishment Clause. She focused on a few specific points. First, like the majority, she emphasized that its inquiry required an evaluation of all reasonable educational options that Ohio provided to the Cleveland school system, regardless of whether they were formally made available in the same section of the Ohio Code as the voucher program. She insisted that the facts were critical in cases arising under the Establishment Clause by saying that failing to look at all of the educational options would "ignore how the educational system in Cleveland actually functions." Also, she believed that the "decision, when considered in light of other longstanding government programs that impact religious organizations and our prior Establishment Clause jurisprudence, oes notmark a dramatic break from the past." Finally, she believed, "The share of public resources that reach religious schools is not... as significant as respondents suggest.... $8.2 million is no small sum, it pales in comparison to the amount of funds that federal, state, and local governments already provide religious institutions" without there being any serious question regarding the constitutionality of such support. Her conclusion in the case, like in many other cases, was tied closely to the facts of the case. Thomas's opinion focused on the civil rights implications of the case: "
Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
once said that ' ucation... means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.' Today many of our inner-city public schools deny emancipation to urban minority students. Despite this Court's observation nearly 50 years ago in ''
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...
'', that 'it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education,' urban children have been forced into a system that continually fails them. These cases present an example of such failures. Besieged by escalating financial problems and declining academic achievement, the Cleveland City School District was in the midst of an academic emergency when Ohio enacted its scholarship program." Thomas gave another string concurrence to this Supreme Court decision: "The protection of religious liberty using the Fourteenth Amendment is legitimate, but to use the Establishment Clause to prevent the operation of a perfectly neutral program concerning school choice is not." Thomas simply asserted that all this program did was essentially provide an educational opportunity to a range of disadvantaged minority children, the importance of it all.


Dissenting opinions

Justice Stevens and Justice Souter both wrote a separate
dissenting opinion A dissenting opinion (or dissent) is an opinion in a legal case in certain legal systems written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion of the court which gives rise to its judgment. Dissenting opinions are no ...
. Justice Stevens's dissenting opinion focused on the method by which the majority reached its conclusions. In his view, the Court "should ignore three factual matters that are discussed at length." Specifically, he argued that the Court should not consider the severe educational crisis that confronted the school district when Ohio enacted its voucher program, the wide range of choices that have been made available to students within the public school system, or the voluntary character of the private choice to prefer a private religious education over a public secular education. Justice Souter's dissenting opinion presented the voucher program as using the taxpayers for religious and secular instruction and card to the verdict of a similar case. ''
Everson v. Board of Education ''Everson v. Board of Education'', 330 U.S. 1 (1947), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that applied the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to state law. Prior to this decision, the clause, which states, "Congress ...
'' decided that no tax could be used to support religious means. Because Ohio's school voucher program offered aid to those who wished to attend religious private schools, it directly violated ''Everson''. Furthermore, allowing vouchers to be used with religious schooling advanced secular learning and institutions. Souter expresses that ignoring the ruling of ''Everson'' ignored the importance of neutrality and private choice. Moreover, disregarding ''Everson'' promoted a new way of thinking that held government aid as insignificant in constitutional grounds. He commented on the voucher money that was going to religious schools as a reflection of free choice by families: "The 96.6% reflects, instead the fact that too few nonreligious school desks are available and few, but religious schools can afford to accept more than a handful of voucher students.... For the overwhelming number of children in the voucher scheme, the only alternative to the public schools is religious." Souter strongly voiced his denunciation on the fact that the decision undermined the point of prohibiting religious establishments. He claimed that it was all to save religion from its own corruption, but participation in the program depended on adopting rules that might come in forms of religious discrimination.


Private choice test

Moderate Justices Kennedy and O'Connor and conservative Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas combined to form the majority. The Ohio program passed a five-part test that was developed by the Court in the case, the private choice test. It states that a voucher program, to be constitutional, must meet all five criteria: *The program must have a valid secular purpose. *Aid must go to parents, not schools. *A broad class of beneficiaries must be covered. *The program must be neutral with respect to religion. *There must be adequate nonreligious options. The court ruled that the Ohio program met the test: *The valid secular purpose of the program was "providing educational assistance to poor children in a demonstrably failing public school system." *The vouchers were given to the parents. *The "broad class" was all students enrolled in currently failing programs. *Parents who received vouchers were not required to enroll in a religious-based school. *There were other public schools in adjoining districts as well as nonreligious private schools in the Cleveland area that would accept the vouchers. Rehnquist, writing for the majority, stated, "The incidental advancement of a religious mission, or the perceived endorsement of a religious message, is reasonably attributable to the individual aid recipients not the government, whose role ends with the disbursement of benefits." In theory, there was no need for parents to use religious schools, and if the law did not especially encourage the use of vouchers for religious schools, the fact that most parents chose parochial schools was irrelevant. Funding was given to the parents to disburse as they chose, but in ''
Lemon v. Kurtzman ''Lemon v. Kurtzman'', 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.. The court ruled in an 8–0 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (represented through David Kurtz ...
'', the funding at question was given directly to the schools, which failed the test. In his concurring opinion, Thomas emphasized that voucher programs, like the one in the case, were essential because "failing urban public schools disproportionately affect minority children most in need of educational opportunity." He stated that vouchers and other forms of publicly funded private school choice are necessary to give families an opportunity to enroll their children in better, private schools. Otherwise, "the core purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment" would be frustrated. The dissenting opinions disagreed, and Stevens wrote that "the voluntary character of the private choice to prefer a parochial education over an education in the public school system seems to me quite irrelevant to the question whether the government's choice to pay for religious indoctrination is constitutionally permissible." Souter questioned how the Court could both keep ''Everson'' as precedent and decide the case as it did. He also found that religious education and secular education could not be separated, which would automatically violate the Establishment Clause. The establishment clause claims that State are passing laws in correlation to religion.


Blaine Amendments

Most state constitutions have so-called '' Blaine Amendments'', which specifically forbid state funding of religious and/or sectarian education. As a question of state, not federal, law, Ohio's Blaine Amendment was not considered by federal courts in the case. Florida's Opportunity Scholarship voucher program was ruled unconstitutional on Blaine grounds in a split 8-5 First District Court of Appeal ruling in Nov. 2004. The issue was argued before the Florida Supreme Court in 2005, with voucher advocates hoping to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to invalidate Blaine Amendments nationwide, following the ''Zelman'' decision. However, the Florida Supreme Court sidestepped the issue altogether and declared the program unconstitutional on separate grounds in an effort to avoid U.S. Supreme Court scrutiny. Irina Manta, "Missed Opportunities: How the Court Struck Down the Florida School Voucher Program," Saint Louis University Law Journal, Vol 51: 185, 2006: https://scholarlycommons.law.hofstra.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1146&context=faculty_scholarship


See also

*
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 536 This is a list of all United States Supreme Court cases from volume 536 of the ''United States Reports The ''United States Reports'' () are the official record ( law reports) of the Supreme Court of the United States. They include rulings, ord ...
*
List of United States Supreme Court cases This page serves as an index of lists of United States Supreme Court cases. The United States Supreme Court is the highest federal court of the United States. By Chief Justice Court historians and other legal scholars consider each Chief J ...
* ''
Lemon v. Kurtzman ''Lemon v. Kurtzman'', 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States.. The court ruled in an 8–0 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (represented through David Kurtz ...
'' (1971)


References


External links

* *
Sixth Circuit DecisionSummary of case from the Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zelman V. Simmons-Harris United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Rehnquist Court Establishment Clause case law United States education case law 2002 in United States case law 2002 in religion 2002 in education Education in Cleveland United States lawsuits