Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet

Encyclopedia : B : BO : BOA : Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet

Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994)^{[#endnote_citation]}, was a case in the United States Supreme Court.

Contents

1 Facts
2 Opinion of the court
3 Dissent
4 External link

Facts

The State of New York created a school district that coincided with the boundaries of Kiryas Joel, a community of the Satmar Hasidim, a Hasidic Jewish community.

Opinion of the court

The court, in an opinion by Justice Souter, held that the funding of a school district designed to coincide with the neighborhood boundaries of a religious group constitutes an unconstitutional aid to religion. Souter concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion." Critics of this interpretation argue that it effectively changes the Constitution in a way never contemplated by the founders. However, this is a controversial and evolving area of jurisprudence.

Dissent

Justice Scalia, in his dissent, acknowledged that the residents of this district are Satmars, but noted of the Satmar community:

[A]ll its residents also wear unusual dress, have unusual civic customs, and have not much to do with people who are culturally different from them ... On what basis does Justice Souter conclude that it is the theological distinctiveness rather than the cultural distinctiveness that was the basis for New York State's decision? The normal assumption would be that it was the latter, since it was not theology but dress, language, and cultural alienation that posed the educational problem for the children.

Scalia argued that the state's creation of the Satmar school district did not constitute impermissible aid to a religious group because it is directed to the Satmars in their capacity as a culture rather than their religious capacity. The Court was labeling as religion that which Justice Scalia would have put outside the definition of the word, asserting that the author of the majority opinion would "laud this humanitarian legislation if all of the distinctiveness of the students of Kiryas Joel were attributable to the fact that their parents were nonreligious commune dwellers, or American Indians, or gypsies." Justice Scalia concludes that "[t]he creation of a special, one-culture school district for the benefit of those children would pose no problem. The neutrality demanded by the Religion Clauses requires the same indulgence towards cultural characteristics that are accompanied by religious belief."

External link

↑ [512 U.S. 687] (Text of the opinion on Findlaw.com)

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.