333 U.S. 203 (1948)
Vashti McCollum, a resident, taxpayer, and parent of a child enrolled in the Champaign public schools, commenced this mandamus action in the Circuit Court of Champaign County, Illinois, against the local Board of Education.1 Illinois law at the time imposed compulsory education on children aged seven to sixteen, requiring attendance at tax-supported public schools during regular hours unless the child attended a qualifying private or parochial school; violation was a misdemeanor.2
In 1940, members of Jewish, Roman Catholic, and Protestant faiths formed the voluntary Champaign Council on Religious Education.3 The Council obtained Board permission to offer weekly religious instruction to pupils in grades four through nine.4 Parents signed printed request cards distributed through school channels; participating pupils were released from secular classes for thirty minutes in lower grades and forty-five minutes in higher grades.5 The Council employed and paid the instructors—Protestant teachers, Catholic priests, and a Jewish rabbi—subject to the superintendent's approval and supervision, at no cost to the school district.6 Classes convened in regular public-school classrooms.7 Pupils not electing religious instruction left their rooms for other secular work elsewhere in the building, while those released for religious classes were required to attend and had their presence or absence reported to their regular teachers on standard school forms.8 No Jewish classes operated in later years.9 The program operated continuously from 1940 onward.10
McCollum's petition alleged that the arrangement violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments and sought an order barring all religious teaching in district school buildings during school hours.11 The Board answered that the program was voluntary and constitutional.12 After denial of a motion to dismiss for lack of standing, evidence was taken and findings entered. The trial court denied mandamus; the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed.13 McCollum appealed under 28 U.S.C. § 344(a), and the Supreme Court noted probable jurisdiction.14
Undisputed record facts established that tax-supported property was used for sectarian instruction, that school authorities cooperated closely with the Council in scheduling and enrollment, and that the state's compulsory-attendance machinery supplied pupils to the religious classes while releasing them from their legal duty to attend secular instruction.15
Whether the Champaign released-time program for religious instruction during public school hours violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment?16
The First Amendment, made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth, erects a wall of separation between church and state that prohibits any use of tax-supported public school property or the state's compulsory education machinery to aid religious groups in disseminating their doctrines.17
Yes. The undisputed facts establish that tax-supported school buildings were used for weekly sectarian classes taught by instructors employed by the voluntary Champaign Council on Religious Education, that the state's compulsory attendance law released participating pupils from their legal duty to attend secular instruction upon the condition that they attend the religious classes, and that school authorities cooperated closely by distributing parental consent cards through regular school channels, approving instructors, supervising the program, and requiring attendance reports on standard school forms to be returned to secular teachers.18 This arrangement integrated the religious program into the public school system and supplied pupils to the sectarian groups at public expense.19
The program violates the Establishment Clause; the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court is reversed and the cause remanded.20
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justices Jackson, Rutledge And Burton
The Champaign arrangement commingles sectarian and secular instruction in public schools in violation of the constitutional principle of separation.21 Historical development of American public education demonstrates that long before the Fourteenth Amendment the guiding principle was prohibition of state furtherance of religious instruction.22 The public school must remain free from entanglement in sectarian strife to serve its role in a heterogeneous democratic society.23
The momentum of the whole school atmosphere and school planning is put behind religious instruction in order to secure for it such momentum and planning.24 Separation means separation, not something less.25 The Champaign plan presents powerful elements of inherent pressure by the school system in the interest of religious sects.26 The integration of religious instruction within the school system furthers inculcation in the tenets of some faiths and sharpens consciousness of religious differences among children committed to the state's care.27 These are consequences not amenable to statistics but are precisely the consequences against which the Constitution was directed.28
While the formal religious instruction here exceeds permissible limits, the sweeping mandamus relief sought would require courts to act as a super board of education and purge all religious influences from secular subjects.29 A task for which the Constitution provides no guidance and which would produce educational confusion if applied uniformly nationwide.30 It is too much to expect that mortals will teach subjects about which their contemporaries have passionate controversies with the detachment they may summon to teaching about remote subjects.31
The opinions in this case show that public educational authorities have evolved a considerable variety of practices in dealing with the religious problem.32 Neighborhoods differ in racial, religious and cultural compositions.33 It must be expected that they will adopt different customs which will give emphasis to different values and will induce different experiments.34
The historical record of close association between church and state in American education and public life demonstrates that the First Amendment was not intended to forbid every cooperative arrangement.35 Past practice shows that use of school buildings by non-sectarian groups for optional religious education during released time is not an establishment of religion.36 The prohibition of enactments respecting the establishment of religion do not bar every friendly gesture between church and state.37
It is not an absolute prohibition against every conceivable situation where the two may work together.38 The incidental advantages obtained by religious bodies as a by-product of organized society, such as use of school buildings when not needed for secular purposes, do not constitute the purposeful assistance to ecclesiastical functions that the Establishment Clause forbids.39 All churches receive aid from government in the form of freedom from taxation.40 The Everson decision itself justified the transportation of children to church schools by New Jersey for safety reasons.41
Whether the use of tax-supported public school buildings and the state's compulsory education machinery to facilitate religious instruction by private sectarian groups constitutes an impermissible aid to religion?42
Yes. The record shows without dispute that regular classrooms in tax-supported buildings hosted the religious classes.45 Pupils were released from compulsory secular attendance only upon electing to attend the religious sessions.46 The school superintendent exercised approval and supervisory authority over instructors and the practical operation of the program.47 This thereby afforded sectarian groups invaluable aid through the state's compulsory public school machinery.48
Such use of public property and compulsory machinery impermissibly aids religion and violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.49
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by Justices Jackson, Rutledge And Burton
The Champaign plan presents powerful elements of inherent pressure by the school system in the interest of religious sects. The integration of religious instruction within the school system furthers inculcation in the tenets of some faiths and sharpens consciousness of religious differences among children committed to the state's care. These are consequences not amenable to statistics but are precisely the consequences against which the Constitution was directed.
The public school must keep scrupulously free from entanglement in the strife of sects. The preservation of the community from divisive conflicts, of Government from irreconcilable pressures by religious groups, of religion from censorship and coercion however subtly exercised, requires strict confinement of the State to instruction other than religious.
The incidental advantages obtained by religious bodies as a by-product of organized society, such as use of school buildings when not needed for secular purposes, do not constitute the purposeful assistance to ecclesiastical functions that the Establishment Clause forbids. All churches receive aid from government in the form of freedom from taxation. The Everson decision itself justified the transportation of children to church schools by New Jersey for safety reasons.
It accords with Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education, where this Court upheld a free textbook statute of Louisiana against a charge that it aided private schools on the ground that the books were for the education of the children, not to aid religious schools.50
Whether the integration of weekly religious classes into the regular school schedule, with parental consent cards distributed through school channels and attendance reports returned to secular teachers, draws the validity of an Illinois statute into question under 28 U.S.C. § 344(a)?51
When a state supreme court sustains a challenged program on the ground that state statutes grant the local board authority to establish it, the validity of an Illinois statute is drawn in question within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 344(a).52
Yes. The Illinois Supreme Court sustained the religious instruction program on the ground that Illinois statutes granted the board authority to establish such a program.53 This holding is sufficient to show that the validity of an Illinois statute was drawn in question.54 Appellant's standing as a resident, taxpayer, and parent is also established.55
The motion to dismiss the appeal is denied; the case properly presents a federal constitutional question.56