Agostini v. Felton
| Agostini v. Felton | |
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| Argued April 15, 1997 Decided June 23, 1997 |
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| Full case name | Rachel Agostini et al. v. Betty Louise Felton et al. |
| Citations | 521 U.S. 203 (more)
117 S.Ct. 1997, 138 L.Ed.2d. 391 1997
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| Prior history | Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit |
| Holding | |
| Reverses Aguilar v. Felton in allowing public school teachers to instruct at religious schools, so long as the material was secular and neutral in nature and no "excessive entanglement" between government and religion was apparent. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | O'Connor, joined by Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy |
| Dissent | Souter, joined by Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer |
| Dissent | Ginsburg, joined by Stevens, Souter, Breyer |
| Laws applied | |
| Establishment Clause of the U.S. Const. amends. I | |
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This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
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| Aguilar v. Felton (1985) | |
Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203 (1997), is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. In this case, the Court overruled its decision in Aguilar v. Felton (1985), now finding that it was not a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment for a state-sponsored education initiative to allow public school teachers to instruct at religious schools, so long as the material was secular and neutral in nature and no "excessive entanglement" between government and religion was apparent. This case is noteworthy in a broader sense as a sign of evolving judicial standards surrounding the First Amendment, and the changes that have occurred in modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence.
In 1965, Congress enacted Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with the goal of providing adequate education to all children in the United States, regardless of individual economic conditions. This service, abbreviated as Title I, distributed federal funds to state governments, which, in turn, disbursed the funds to local education agencies. This funding was to be put towards providing remedial education services for low-income students who were at significant risk of failing to meet state academic performance standards. By law, these education services were to be provided to eligible students, whether enrolled in public school or not. Further, the services offered to children attending private schools were to be "equitable in comparison" to the services offered to children attending public school. All educational services were to be of a secular, neutral, and non-ideological nature.
In 1966, the Board of Education of the City of New York ("Board") applied for Title I funding. In the eligible districts in New York City, 10% of schoolchildren attend private school, and of those 10%, 90% attended schools of a particular religious ideology. To prevent First Amendment complications, the Board arranged to bus private school attendees to public schools for after-school instruction. This plan failed, and another one was adopted, which failed as well. The Board then moved on to a plan whereby public school teachers would be permitted to provide instruction in the private school buildings themselves. A number of stipulations were attached to this, aimed at preventing a violation of the Establishment Clause, including mandatory surprise visits by state-employed supervisors and removal of all religious articles from the room to be used for Title I instruction. This plan was reviewed by the Supreme Court in Aguilar v. Felton, where it was deemed to create a constitutionally impermissible "entanglement" between government and religion. The District Court, on remand, issued an injunction, enjoining the Board from following a Title I plan that violated the decision.
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