Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet
Supreme Court of the United States Official seal of the Supreme Court of the United States File links The following pages link to this file: Marbury v. ...
Argued --- Decided ---
Full case name: ??? v. ??? Citations: 512 U.S. 687 Prior history: --- Subsequent history: ---
Holding
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Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
Majority by: --- Joined by: --- Concurrence in the judgment by: --- Dissent by: --- Joined by: ---
Laws applied
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Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994)^[1], was a case in which the United States Supreme Court Court citation is a standard system used in common law countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and Australia to uniquely identify the location of past court cases in special series of books called reporters. ... 1994 (MCMXCIV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States...

Facts

The State of New York created a school district that coincided with the boundaries of a community of the Satmar Hasidim, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. Official language(s) English Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 27th 141,205 km² 455 km 530 km 13. ... Satmar (חסידות סאטמער) is a dynasty of Hasidic Judaism which originated in the Hungarian town of Satu Mare (Szatmárnémeti in Hungarian), originally part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and presently located in Romania). ... Haredi Judaism, also called ultra-Orthodox Judaism, is the most theologically conservative form of Judaism. ... The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ...

Opinion of the Court

The Court, in an opinion by Justice Souter, held that the funding of a school district designed to coincide with the neighborhood boundaries of a religious group constitutes an unconstitutional aid to religion. Souter concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion." Critics of this interpretation argue that it effectively changes the Constitution in a way never contemplated by the founders. However, this is a controversial and evolving area of jurisprudence. David Hackett Souter (born September 17, 1939) has been a US Supreme Court Associate Justice since 1990. ...

Dissent

Justice Scalia, in his dissent, acknowledged that the residents of this district are Satmars, but noted of the Satmar community:

[A]ll its residents also wear unusual dress, have unusual civic customs, and have not much to do with people who are culturally different from them ... On what basis does Justice Souter conclude that it is the theological distinctiveness rather than the cultural distinctiveness that was the basis for New York State's decision? The normal assumption would be that it was the latter, since it was not theology but dress, language, and cultural alienation that posed the educational problem for the children.

Scalia argued that the state's creation of the Satmar school district did not constitute impermissible aid to a religious group because it is directed to the Satmars in their capacity as a culture rather than their religious capacity. The Court was labeling as religion that which Justice Scalia would have put outside the definition of the word, asserting that the author of the majority opinion would "laud this humanitarian legislation if all of the distinctiveness of the students of Kiryas Joel were attributable to the fact that their parents were nonreligious commune dwellers, or American Indians, or gypsies." Justice Scalia concludes that "[t]he creation of a special, one-culture school district for the benefit of those children would pose no problem. The neutrality demanded by the Religion Clauses requires the same indulgence towards cultural characteristics that are accompanied by religious belief."

External link

• ^ 512 U.S. 687 (Text of the opinion on Findlaw.com)