Substantive Law Study Support

United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965)

These three cases involve the exemption claims under 6 (j) of the Universal Military Training and Service Act of conscientious objectors who did not belong to an orthodox religious sect. Section 6 (j) excepts from combatant service in the armed forces those who are conscientiously opposed to participation in war by reason of their “religious training and belief,” i.e., belief in an individual’s relation to a Supreme Being involving duties beyond a human relationship but not essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code. In all the cases, convictions were obtained in the district courts for refusal to submit to induction in the armed forces; in Nos. 50 and 51 the court of appeals reversed and in No. 29 the conviction was affirmed.
Held: 1. The test of religious belief within the meaning of the exemption in 6 (j) is whether it is a sincere and meaningful belief occupying in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those admittedly qualified for the exemption. 2. Local boards and courts are to decide whether the objector’s beliefs are sincerely held and whether they are, in his own scheme of things, religious: they are not to require proof of the religious doctrines nor are they to reject beliefs because they are not comprehensible.
3. Under the broad construction applicable to 6 (j), the applications involved in these cases, none of which was based on merely personal moral codes, qualified for exemption. County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh, 492 U.S. 573 (1989)
This litigation concerns the constitutionality of two recurring holiday displays located on public property in downtown Pittsburgh. The first, a crèche depicting the Christian nativity scene, was placed on the Grand Staircase of the Allegheny County Courthouse, which is the “main,” “most beautiful,” and “most public” part of the courthouse. The crèche was donated by the Holy Name Society, a Roman Catholic group, and bore a sign to that effect. Its manager had at its crest an angel bearing a banner proclaiming “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” meaning “Glory to God in the Highest.” The second of the holiday displays in question was an 18-foot Chanukah menorah or candelabrum, which was placed just outside the City-County Building next to the city’s 45-foot decorated Christmas tree. At the foot of the tree was a sign bearing the mayor’s name and containing text declaring the city’s “salute to liberty.” The menorah is owned by Chabad, a Jewish group, but is stored, erected, and removed each year by the city.
Respondents, the Greater Pittsburgh Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and seven local residents, filed suit seeking permanently to enjoin the county from displaying the crèche and the city from displaying the menorah on the ground that the displays violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, made applicable to state governments by the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court denied relief, relying on Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, which held that a city’s inclusion of a crèche in its annual Christmas display in a private park did not violate the Establishment Clause. The court of appeals reversed, distinguishing Lynch v. Donnelly, and holding that the crèche and the menorah in the present case must be understood as an impermissible governmental endorsement of Christianity and Judaism under Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602.

Held: The judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cases are remanded.

Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005)

This case involved the issue of whether a display of the Ten Commandments on a monument given to the government at the Texas State Capitol in Austin is a violation of the First Amendment Establishment Clause.
The trial court found for Texas, determining that the monument served a valid secular purpose and a reasonable observer would not interpret that the monument was a governmental endorsement of religion. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed that the monument was constitutional on the grounds that the monument conveyed both a secular and religious message. The plaintiff appealed and the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
Held: Affirmed. The Court found that “simply having a religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause.”

Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756 (1973)

Amendments to New York’s Education and Tax Laws established three financial aid programs for nonpublic elementary and secondary schools. The first section provides for direct money grants to “qualifying” nonpublic schools to be used for “maintenance and repair” of facilities and equipment to ensure the students’ “health, welfare and safety.” Section 2 establishes a tuition reimbursement plan for parents of children attending nonpublic elementary or secondary schools. The third program, contained in 3, 4, and 5 of the challenged law, is designed to give tax relief to parents failing to qualify for tuition reimbursement. These sections are also prefaced by a series of legislative findings similar to those accompanying the previous sections. While practically all the schools entitled to receive maintenance and repair grants “are related to the Roman Catholic Church and teach Catholic religious doctrine to some degree,” institutions qualifying under the remainder of the statute include a substantial number of other church-affiliated schools. The district court held that (1) the maintenance and repair grants, and (2) the tuition reimbursement grants, were invalid, but that the income tax provisions of 3, 4, and 5 did not violate the Establishment Clause.
Held: 1. The propriety of a legislature’s purpose may not immunize from further scrutiny a law that either has a primary effect that advances religion or fosters excessive church-state entanglements. 2. The maintenance and repair provisions of the New York statute violate the Establishment Clause because their inevitable effect is to subsidize and advance the religious mission of sectarian schools. 3. The tuition reimbursement grants, if given directly to sectarian schools, would similarly violate the Establishment Clause, and the fact that they are delivered to the parents rather than the schools does not compel a contrary result, as the effect of the aid is unmistakably to provide financial support for nonpublic, sectarian institutions. 4. The system of providing income tax benefits to parents of children attending New York’s nonpublic schools also violates the Establishment Clause because, like the tuition reimbursement program, it is not sufficiently restricted to assure that it will not have the impermissible effect of advancing the sectarian activities of religious schools. Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U.S. 664, distinguished. 5. Because the challenged sections have the impermissible effect of advancing religion, it is not necessary to consider whether such aid would yield an entanglement with religion.

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002)

Ohio’s Pilot Project Scholarship Program gives educational choices to families in any Ohio school district that is under state control pursuant to a federal-court order. The program provides tuition aid for certain students in the Cleveland City School District, the only covered district, to attend participating public or private schools of their parents’ choosing and tutorial aid for students who choose to remain enrolled in public school. Both religious and nonreligious schools in the district may participate, as may public schools in adjacent school districts. Tuition aid is distributed to parents according to financial need, and where the aid is spent depends solely upon where parents choose to enroll their children. The number of tutorial assistance grants provided to students remaining in public school must equal the number of tuition aid scholarships. In the 1999–2000 school year, 82 percent of the participating private schools had a religious affiliation, none of the adjacent public schools participated, and 96 percent of the students participating in the scholarship program were enrolled in religiously affiliated schools. Sixty percent of the students were from families at or below the poverty line. Cleveland schoolchildren also have the option of enrolling in community schools, which are funded under state law but run by their own school boards and receive twice the per-student funding as participating private schools, or magnet schools, which are public schools emphasizing a particular subject area, teaching method, or service, and for which the school district receives the same amount per student as it does for a student enrolled at a traditional public school. Respondents, Ohio taxpayers, sought to enjoin the program on the ground that it violated the Establishment Clause. The federal district court granted them summary judgment, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed.
Held: The program does not offend the Establishment Clause.

Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672 (1971)

The Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963 provides federal construction grants for college and university facilities, excluding “any facility used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship, or . . . primarily in connection with any part of the program of a school or department of divinity.” The United States retains a 20-year interest in any facility constructed with funds under the Act, and if, during this period, the recipient violates the statutory conditions, the government is entitled to recovery of funds. Four church-related colleges and universities in Connecticut received federal construction grants for five facilities. Appellants attempted to show, in a three-judge court, that the recipient institutions were “sectarian” by introducing evidence of their relations with religious authorities, the curricula content, and other indicia of religious character. Appellee colleges introduced testimony that they had fully complied with the statutory conditions and that their religious affiliations did not interfere with their secular educational functions. The court held that the Act authorized grants to church-related schools and sustained its constitutionality, finding that the Act had neither the purpose nor the effect of promoting religion.
Held: The Act is constitutional except for that portion providing for a 20-year limitation on the religious use of the facilities constructed with federal funds.

Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990)

Respondents Smith and Black were fired by a private drug rehabilitation organization because they ingested peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, for sacramental purposes at a ceremony of their Native American Church. Their applications for unemployment compensation were denied by the State of Oregon under a state law disqualifying employees discharged for work-related “misconduct.” Holding that the denials violated respondents’ First Amendment free exercise rights, the State Court of Appeals reversed. The State Supreme Court affirmed, but this Court vacated the judgment and remanded for a determination whether sacramental peyote use is proscribed by the state’s controlled substance law, which makes it a felony to knowingly or intentionally possess the drug. Pending that determination, the Court refused to decide whether such use is protected by the Constitution. On remand, the State Supreme Court held that sacramental peyote use violated, and was not excepted from, the state-law prohibition, but concluded that that prohibition was invalid under the Free Exercise Clause.
Held: The Free Exercise Clause permits the state to prohibit sacramental peyote use and thus to deny unemployment benefits to persons discharged for such use.

Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709 (2005)

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) stated that prisoners in facilities that accept federal funds may not be denied accommodations necessary to engage in activities for the practice of their own religious beliefs. A number of prisoners in Ohio sued, claiming that the state of Ohio did not sufficiently provide accommodations necessary for the practice of their non-mainstream religion, including religious literature, ceremonial items, or prohibitions on their dress.
The trial court found for the prisoners and Ohio appealed, arguing that RLUIPA improperly advanced religion and thus violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
The appellate court reversed and the prisoners appealed.

Held: The U.S. Supreme Court reversed and found for the prisoners. The Court held that RLUIPA did not violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause; since the prisoners faced a “government-created burden,” Ohio must provide accommodations under the Free Exercise Clause.

Something to Consider

How might one reconcile the Nyquist (1973) and Zelman (2002) decisions? Compare the reasoning used by the Court in these two cases. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Committee for Public Education & Religious. (Follows Liberty v. Nyquist)