Nebraska State Board of Education v. School District of Hartington, Etc, 409 U.S. 921 (1972)

409 U.S.
921
93 S.Ct. 220
34 L.Ed.2d 182
NEBRASKA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.

v.
SCHOOL DISTRICT OF HARTINGTON, etc.
No. 71-1537.
Supreme Court of the United States

October 16, 1972
On petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Nebraska.

The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice MARSHALL concurs,
dissenting.
I would grant this petition for certiorari and put the case down for oral
argument. It involves alleged violations of the First Amendment which are
applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the
violations, on the papers before us, seem to me to be of the kind that we struck
down in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745.
What happened was this: The school district made application to the State for
financial aid in instructing students in remedial reading and remedial
mathematics. The application stated that the school district was leasing the
facilities of the Cedar Catholic High School as a place to conduct this project.
The students from both the public and the private school would attend these
classes.
The lease provided that no objects, pictures, or other articles having a religious
connotation would be visible in the classroom.
This action was instituted in the Nebraska Courts when the state authorities
refused to undertake the project. The Supreme Court of Nebraska, by a divided

vote, approved the project over the objection that it violated the First
Amendment. 188 Neb. 1, 195 N.W.2d 161. Under the project as approved, state
funds will be channeled into this parochial school. In this case as in Lemon v.
Kurtzman the State is supplying funds for instruction in parochial schools
leading to a degree of entanglement between government and religion which
runs counter to our opinions.
5
If a State can finance two courses in a parochial school, there is no reason and
logic why it cannot finance the teaching and learning of an entire curriculum. In
Sanders v. Johnson, 403 U.S. 955, 91 S.Ct. 2292, 29 L.Ed.2d 865, we affirmed
a district court decision (319 F.Supp. 421) that held invalid a program whereby
the State had contracted with parochial schools for the 'purchase' by the State of
'secular educational services' to be supplied to the children. The contract in that
case is different only in scope and in form from the present one. There is no
provision in the lease for surveillance of the use of the premises except for
making sure that no objects, pictures, or other articles having a religious
connotation are present in the classrooms. Yet those teaching in a parochial
school may be members of that faith or under compelling pressures. In light of
the command of the First Amendment, the State in each case must see that all
courses of instruction are confined to the 'secular' area and do not trench on
religious tenets or doctrine. To police this statutory standard would require the
exercise of broad powers of surveillance by the State. As stated by the District
Court in the Sanders case:
'In the present case, the parochial school function which is funded is the
entirety of secular 'instruction' itself. In order to confine assistance to this rather
amorphous use, the Act would introduce state supervision into virtually every
nook and cranny of a school's administration. Perhaps this is logically
necessary. If a conscientious public official is to be certain that tax dollars are
spent only for activities which are proper secular subcategories of the school's
instruction, he must engage in a program of inspecting and monitoring which
even the copious specification of the Act and its open-ended supplementary
regulations only begin to suggest.' 319 F.Supp. 431.
The District Court went on to say:
'. . . the detailed plan which the legislature has enacted to separate, purchase,
promote, and regulate the contents of secular instruction goes well beyond a
theoretical subsidy and brings the potentiality of mutually-damaging
involvement to life. Public officials must investigate curricula, materials, and
manner of teaching in detail, case by case; oversee the training of teachers; and
audit financial records. By doing so, they might disentangle the last thread of
religious doctrine from all secular instruction; but by this very process they
would certainly enmesh the state in continuous conflict with churches over the
effectiveness with which governmental investigating and policing machinery
would be operated.' Id., at 432.
8
The necessity of surveillance is necessarily implied. *
Denial of certiorari here does not appear consistent with our affirmance of
Sanders. These considerations lead me to vote to take this case and put it down
for oral argument so that the entire plan may be carefully examined against the
requirements of the First Amendment.
10
Mr. Justice BRENNAN.
11
The situation, as I see it, is not that portrayed in my Brother DOUGLAS'

dissent. Hartington, Nebraska, is a small town1 where neither the public nor the
parochial schools offered remedial reading and remedial mathematics courses.2
The School District decided to avail itself of the benefits of the federally
financed courses in such subjects provided under the Federal Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965 and submitted a grant proposal, as required
by that Act, adequate to provide the courses for all educationally deprived
children within the school district91 public school and 48 parochial school
children. But there was a problem of space because there were no available
classrooms in the public schools.3 There were, however, two unused classrooms
in the Hartington Cedar Catholic High School and the School District proposed
to lease one classroom full time and the second classroom half time at an
annual rent of $200 for the full-time classroom and $100 for the half-time
classroom. The lease provided that the classrooms would be used only for
carrying on the project under the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education
Act of 1965; that the Hartington School District would have full control over
the classrooms and the educational programs; and that no objects, pictures, or
other articles having a religious meaning or connotation would be in the
classrooms. The lease represented the complete extent of the relations between
the School District and the parochial school. There is not the slightest
suggestion that this was a subterfuge to make a subsidy to the
The lease agreement states that:
'[T]he above described project for said courses does not and will not duplicate
or replace, either in whole or in part, any course of study in the present curricula
of either the public schools or the private schools in Hartington and its environs,
. . .'
3
The Superintendent of the Hartington Public Schools, in a letter to the State

Board of Education, indicated that a consolidation of rural school districts into
the Hartington School District had increased total enrollment in Hartington's
public schools from 394 students in 1967-1968 to 572 students in 1969-1970.
As a consequence, the School District was making preparations to conduct
three kindergarten classes in the city auditorium. Rec., at 10. parochial school,
or anything except an arrangement motivated solely by the lack of space in the
public schools. Thus the School District would have no part whatever in the
curriculum of the parochial school either by way of subsidy of its costs through
financing of teaching or otherwise. The remedial reading and remedial
mathematics courses would operate completely independently of that
curriculum and of the Catholic school administration. My Brother DOUGLAS
relies on Sanders v. Johnson, 403 U.S. 955, 91 S.Ct. 2292, 29 L.Ed.2d 865
(1971), aff'g 319 F.Supp. 421 (D.C.Conn.1970). The situation there is poles
apart from this. That was an undisguised subsidy in the form of 'purchasing'
'secular educational services' from parochial schools and was patently invalid
under our decisions in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Earley v. DiCenso, and Robinson v.
DiCenso, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971). I have
heretofore expressed my view that the First Amendment does not render
unconstitutional 'every vestige, however slight, of cooperation or
accommodation between religion and government.' Abington School District v.
Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 294, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963)
(concurring opinion). The accommodation involved in this case would not
trespass beyond permissible bounds. For this reason, I join in denying the
petition for certiorari.
That was the view of Chief Justice White and Justice Spencer of the Supreme
Court of Nebraska as stated in their dissenting opinion:
'In summary, it seems to me, over and beyond the other reasons touched on in
this dissent, that this act, this scheme, this procedure requires that the state will
be amidst the daily affairs of a religious school. It must be remembered that we
are not dealing with something as simple as a bus ride, or a textbook or a mere
lease agreement; we have here an innovative program of noble purpose and it
carries with it those highly feared risks of conflict and divisiveness which
history has shown follow any close proximity between government and
religion.
'If this statute, and the state action asked to be taken under it, is constitutionally
permissible, then I see no obstruction or impediment to the state and the federal
government taking complete and literal control of the contracting schools and
making their entire secular curricula part of its public system for all purposes,
including the hiring of teachers, the renting of the physical facilities, and
perhaps the admission of students. Such action plainly runs afoul of the state
and federal Constitutions. We must remember that the real test of
constitutionality is not what is actually done under the act but what the act
authorized.' 188 Neb., at p. 13, 195 N.W.2d 161.
1
The population of Hartington, according to the 1970 census, is 1,581 people.

The Hartington public schools had a total enrollment of 572 pupils during the
1969-1970 school year.

Nebraska State Board of Education v. School District of Hartington, Etc, 409 U.S. 921 (1972)

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409 U.S.

NEBRASKA STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION et al.

Supreme Court of the United States

On petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Nebraska.

refused to undertake the project. The Supreme Court of Nebraska, by a divided

The necessity of surveillance is necessarily implied. *

Mr. Justice BRENNAN.

The situation, as I see it, is not that portrayed in my Brother DOUGLAS'

The lease agreement states that:

The Superintendent of the Hartington Public Schools, in a letter to the State

The population of Hartington, according to the 1970 census, is 1,581 people.

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