Byron White

“ If religious teaching in federally financed buildings was permitted, the powers of resistance of college students would in no way save the federal scheme. Nor can I imagine the basis for finding college clerics more reliable in keeping promises than their counterparts in elementary and secondary schools — particularly those in the Rhode Island case, since, within five years, the majority of teachers in Rhode Island parochial schools will be lay persons, many of them non-Catholic. ”

“ Both the United States and the States urge that, if parents choose to have their children receive instruction in the required secular subjects in a school where religion is also taught and a religious atmosphere may prevail, part or all of the cost of such secular instruction may be paid for by governmental grants to the religious institution conducting the school and seeking the grant. ”

“ More important, the federal grant program is an ongoing one. The same grant will not be repeated, but new ones to the same or different schools will be made year after year. Thus, the same potential for recurring political controversy accompanies the federal program. Rhode Island may have the problem of appropriating money each year to supplement the salaries of teachers, but the United States must each year seek financing for the new grants it desires to make and must supervise the ones already on the record. ”

“ Accepting the District Court's observation in DiCenso that education is an integral part of the religious mission of the Catholic church — an observation that should neither surprise nor alarm anyone, especially judges who have already approved substantial aid to parochial schools in various forms — the majority then interposes findings and conclusions that the District Court expressly abjured, namely, that nuns, clerics, and dedicated Catholic laymen unavoidably pose a grave risk in that they might not be able to put aside their religion in the secular classroom. ”

“ Here, however, the Court strikes down this Rhode Island statute based primarily on its own model and its own suppositions and unsupported views of what is likely to happen in Rhode Island parochial school classrooms, although, on this record, there is no indication that entanglement difficulties will accompany the salary supplement program.
The Court thus creates an insoluble paradox for the State and the parochial schools. The State cannot finance secular instruction if it permits religion to be taught in the same classroom ”

“ Where a state program seeks to ensure the proper education of its young, in private as well as public schools, free exercise considerations at least counsel against refusing support for students attending parochial schools simply because, in that setting, they are also being instructed in the tenets of the faith they are constitutionally free to practice. ”