Lemon v. Kurtzman

Lemon v. Kurtzman
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 3, 1971 Decided June 28, 1971
Full case name: Alton J. Lemon et al. v. David H. Kurtzman; John R. Earley et al. v. John DiCenso et al.; William P. Robinson, Jr. v. John DiCenso et al. Citations: 403 U.S. 602, 91 S. Ct. 2105, 29 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1971) Prior history: 310 F. Supp. 35 (E.D. Pa. 1969); 316 F. Supp. 112 (D.R.I. 1970) Subsequent history: On remand to 348 F.Supp. 300 (E.D. Pa. 1972), aff'd, 411 U.S. 192 (1973)
Holding
For a law to be constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the law must have a legitimate secular purpose, must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and must not result in an excessive entanglement of government and religion.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Warren E. Burger Associate Justices: Hugo L. Black, William O. Douglas, John M. Harlan, William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart, Byron R. White, Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun
Case opinions
Majority by: Burger Joined by: Black, Douglas, Harlan, Stewart, Marshall, Blackmun Concurrence by: Douglas Joined by: Black, Marshall (who filed a separate statement) Concurrence by: Brennan Partial concurrence and partial dissent by: White
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Amend. I; R.I. Gen. Laws Ann. 16-51-1 et seq. (Supp. 1970); Pa. Stat. Ann. tit. 24, §§ 5601-5609 (Supp. 1971)

In Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971)^[1], the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Pennsylvania's 1968 Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which allowed the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools (most of which were Catholic) for teachers' salaries, textbooks and instructional materials, violated the Establishment clause of the First Amendment. The decision also upheld a decision of the First Circuit, which had struck down the Rhode Island Salary Supplement Act providing state funds to supplement salaries at nonpublic elementary schools by 15%. As in Pennsylvania, most of these funds were spent on Catholic schools.

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Lemon's future is somewhat uncertain. Sustained criticism by conservative Justices such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, lack of a clear reaffirmation of the central tenets of Lemon over the years since the 1980s, and inconsistent application in major Establishment Clause cases has led some legal commentators and lower court judges to believe that Lemon's days are numbered, and that the Court has implicitly left the decision of whether to apply the test in a specific case up to lower courts. This has resulted in a patchwork pattern of enforcement in circuit courts across the nation; while some courts apply Lemon in all or most cases, others apply it in few or none. The Supreme Court itself has applied the Lemon test as recently as Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000).

See also

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External link

• ^ 403 U.S. 602 (Text of the opinion from Findlaw.com)