This video is sponsored by Brilliant
Mr. Beat presents
Supreme Court Briefs
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania June 19, 1968
The Pennsylvania General Assembly passes a law called the Pennsylvania Non-Public Elementary
and Secondary Education Act of 1968.
I know, I know.
Impressive name for a law, right?
Anyway, the law said the state government could supplement the salaries of teachers
of secular subjects in religious schools, as well as pay for their textbooks and other
instructional materials.
Look, the reason why they passed this law is because religious schools were struggling
and needed help.
Under the law, eligible teachers could only get the funding if they taught courses offered
in the public schools, using only materials used in the public schools, and couldn’t
teach courses in religion.
At the time, 25% of Pennsylvania’s students attended private schools, and about 95% of
those were Roman Catholic schools
But hold on sonny boy.
This was tax-payer money to church-affiliated schools.
Didn’t that go against the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?
Ya know, the one that said the government couldn’t establish any religion?
Well this lemon thought so.
No, not that lemon.
Yeah, THAT Lemon.
Alton J. Lemon, the First Amendment Hero himself.
After criticizing the law at a Philadelphia American Civil Liberties Union meeting, a
bunch of folks organized and asked him to be the lead plaintiff to fight the law.
He was a tax-paying, Pennsylvania citizen, after all, with a kid attending public school
there.
Lemon was like “sure,” and yep, Philadelphia newspapers literally called him a “First
Amendment Hero” for volunteering as tribute.
Anyway, Lemon and the others claimed that Pennsylvania went against the First Amendment
by “respecting” an establishment of religion, especially since the Catholic Church seemed
to benefit a lot from it.
Representing the other side was David Kurtzman, the Superintendent of Public Instruction of
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Well, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed the case.
However, Rhode Island had ALSO passed a similar law, and after it passed had citizens that
fought it in court.
Oh, and IT’S district court sided with the citizens.
So with these conflicting decisions, the Supreme Court decided to step in to review both cases
and consolidate them for real.
They heard oral arguments on March 3, 1971.
The big question was “Do laws that provide state funding for non-public, non-secular
schools go against the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?”
The Court said “yes.”
On June 28, 1971, it announced it had sided with Lemon.
It was 8-0 for the Pennsylvania law, and 8-1 for the Rhode Island law.
Now, as decisive as this decision was, the Court struggled with this one due to the vague
constitutional language of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
To solve this, they came up with a three-part test to determine whether or not a law violated
the Establishment Clause..
The law must have a secular purpose.
In other words, its purpose shouldn’t have religion in mind.
The Court based this one on the case Abington School District v. Schempp.
The law’s primary effect must be one that neither promotes or restrains religion.
The Court based this one on the case Board of Education v. Allen.
And The law must not create “excessive government
entanglement with religion.”
The Court based this one on the case Walz v. Tax Commission.
Collectively, this three-part test today is known as the Lemon Test, named after Alton
Lemon, of course.
So, according to the Lemon Test, the Court determined both of those state laws were unconstitutional
because they broke the third part of the test, mostly since the religious school system benefited
the mission of the Catholic Church.
While Lemon v. Kurtzman gave us the Lemon Test, since the decision, the courts have
applied it inconsistently.
In the 1997 case Agostini v. Felton, the Court modified the Lemon Test, combining the second
and third parts of it while also saying you gotta look at both the government indoctrination
involved and you gotta define who exactly are the recipients of government money based
on religion.
The Lemon Test does seem to be losing influence in recent years, as many justices have talked
trash about it, saying it is no longer useful.
And if Alton Lemon was still alive today, he probably wouldn’t be too surprised to
hear this.
Back in 2003, 32 years after the decision, he said “separation of church and state
is gradually losing ground, I regret to say.”
I’ll see you for the next Supreme Court case, jury!
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So where IS the line exactly between church and state and how do we know when we’ve
crossed it?
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Do you like lemons?
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