Aguilar v. Felton and Agostini v. Felton: Establishment Clause

Aguilar v. Felton: Factual Background and Issues

New York City used federal funds from the Title I program of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to pay the salaries of public school employees teaching in private parochial schools in the city. The program was established to help children from low-income families. The teachers involved were not employees of the private schools; they were city employees assigned by the city to those schools and supervised by city employees. All professionals involved in the program were directed to avoid participating in religious activity at the school, to bar religious materials from their classrooms, and to use only materials and equipment paid for under Title I. Furthermore, those Title I materials were used solely for the remedial program, and classrooms were cleared of all religious material before remedial classes began.

Taxpayers brought an action in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleging that the program violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which guarantees the separation of church and state. The trial court granted the taxpayers' motion for summary judgment, and the appellate court reversed. The case was then brought to the Supreme Court for review.

The central legal issues before the Court were as follows: Does the use of public school funds to run a non-religious educational program at a parochial school violate the Establishment Clause? Does the fact that the instructors are public school employees, told that they are under the sole control of the public school system, change the outcome of the case? Does the fact that New York adopted a system for monitoring the religious content of publicly funded classes in religious schools differentiate this case from prior cases that have determined such funding to be a violation of the Establishment Clause?

Aguilar v. Felton: Reasoning and Analysis

In two prior cases, the Establishment Clause was considered an insurmountable barrier to the use of public funds in religious schools [473 U.S. 402, 408]. The programs involved in this dispute are essentially similar to those the Court had found unconstitutional in earlier legal challenges. As the Court stated: "In both cases, publicly funded instructors teach classes composed exclusively of private school students in private school buildings. In both cases, an overwhelming number of the participating private schools are religiously affiliated. In both cases, the publicly funded programs provide not only professional personnel, but also all materials and supplies necessary for the operation of the programs. Finally, the instructors in both cases are told that they are public school employees under the sole control of the public school system" [473 U.S. 402, 408].

The fact that New York had a system for monitoring the religious content of the classes did not render the funding constitutional. Even if the monitoring successfully prevented public funding from being used for religious material, the monitoring itself created the type of excessive entanglement of church and state that the Establishment Clause was designed to prevent. As the Court explained: "Even where state aid to parochial institutions does not have the primary effect of advancing religion, the provision of such aid may nonetheless violate the Establishment Clause owing to the nature of the interaction of church and state in the administration of that aid" [473 U.S. 402, 409].

The Court noted that the Establishment Clause serves two purposes. First, when a state becomes enmeshed with a particular denomination, it can undermine the freedom of religious belief of those who are not members of that denomination. Second, when the government supervises religious content, it necessarily intrudes into sacred matters. As previously established, for an aid program to be non-entangling, the state must be able to identify and subsidize separate secular functions without on-site inspections or other forms of ongoing supervision [473 U.S. 402, 411]. The schools in question existed primarily to advance a religious belief — many receive funding from a church, require attendance at religious services, incorporate prayer during class, and report back to a church or parish [473 U.S. 402, 412]. This program contained all of the critical elements of entanglement prohibited by earlier case law: the aid was provided in a pervasively sectarian environment, and ongoing inspection would be required to ensure the absence of a religious message [473 U.S. 402, 412].

In order to maintain the separation between church and state, it is important to consider the impact that funding a sectarian program will have — not only on that program, but also on the state officials involved and on non-members of that religious sect. In this scenario, ensuring that religion was not being funded by the program would require the state to engage in ongoing monitoring. The problem with such monitoring is that anything approaching the teaching of values could be characterized as religious, and such characterization is particularly likely in the setting of a religious school. Furthermore, because classrooms were to be cleared of religious items, the state would be required to determine what constituted a religious item. The program would also necessitate routine, frequent administrative contact between the staff of the religious school and state workers, resulting in an entangled relationship. The judgments made by agents of the city could carry significant implications for the religious beliefs of each school. Finally, because these schools are religious institutions established primarily to promote the beliefs of particular religions, it infringes upon the religious freedom of non-members to have their tax dollars support children in these programs.

Aguilar v. Felton: Conclusion

The Court ruled in favor of the taxpayers and determined that the Title I program violated the Establishment Clause. Placing city employees as teachers in parochial schools and supervising them through city employees meant that the state was establishing a presence within the church. Even when state aid to a parochial institution is not intended to advance religion, it can still violate the Establishment Clause if the provision of that aid furthers the entanglement of church and state.

Agostini v. Felton: Factual Background and Issues

Following the Supreme Court's ruling in Aguilar v. Felton that New York City's Title I parochial school remedial education program violated the Establishment Clause, the case was remanded to the District Court, which entered a permanent injunction. Ten years later, the petitioners — the parties bound by the injunction — filed motions under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(5). The Second Circuit affirmed the District Court's decision denying the motion on the merits.

The issues before the Court were: Does a federally funded program that provides supplemental, remedial instruction to disadvantaged children violate the Establishment Clause if such instruction is given at a sectarian school by government employees? Have the Supreme Court's subsequent Establishment Clause decisions sufficiently undermined the earlier ruling to constitute the type of changed circumstances justifying relief under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(5)? Does New York City's Title I program give aid recipients any incentive to modify their religious beliefs or practices in order to receive program services? Does the program result in governmental indoctrination, define its recipients by reference to religion, or create an excessive entanglement between church and state?

References

Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203 (1997).

Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U.S. 402 (1985).