Supreme Court: Church-State Cases, 2001-2002 Term

Publication Date: November 2002

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

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Research Area: Culture and religion

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Abstract:

In its 2001-2002 Term the Supreme Court decided two cases with significant church-state implications. In Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. v. Stratton, Ohio, the Court, by an 8-1 margin, held unconstitutional a municipal ordinance requiring religious groups (and others) to obtain a permit prior to engaging in neighborhood canvassing. In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris the Court, by a 5-4 margin, upheld as constitutional an Ohio school voucher program providing tuition subsidies to students in failing public schools to allow them to attend private schools, most of which were religious.

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc. v. Stratton, Ohio, concerned a municipal ordinance that required all door-to-door canvassers in the community to first obtain a permit. The ordinance required potential canvassers to disclose their identities, the purpose of their calls, the addresses they would visit, and the time period in which the calls would be made. The ordinance had been largely upheld as constitutional by a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. But the Supreme Court struck it down. The Court held that the ordinance restricted far more speech than necessary and was not narrowly tailored to serve the village’s interests of protecting its citizens’ privacy and preventing crime.

Zelman v. Simmons-Harris concerned the constitutionality of Ohio’s Pilot Scholarship Program. That program provided up to $2250 to poor students in kindergarten through the eighth grade in public schools in Cleveland to help them attend private schools in the city or public schools in the neighboring suburbs that chose to participate. None of the suburban schools chose to participate, however; more than 80 percent of the private schools in the city that took part were church-affiliated; and 96 percent of the subsidized students attended such schools. The program had been held unconstitutional by a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. But the Supreme Court held it not to violate the establishment clause, 5-4. The majority said that the voucher program was but one of a number of options available to parents and schoolchildren in Cleveland. Eligible parents, the Court said, could obtain special tutoring for their children in the public schools, send them to public magnet schools or publicly-financed community schools, or use the vouchers to send them to private sectarian or secular schools. Thus, the Court held, the program was “entirely neutral with respect to religion.” It provided benefits to a wide spectrum of individuals defined on the basis of nonreligious criteria, and it afforded parents a “true private choice” in selecting the appropriate education for their children. As a consequence, the Court concluded that the program was constitutional.

In addition, the Court during its 2001-2002 Term affirmed a lower court decision that found no constitutional violation in the exclusion of 11,000 overseas Mormon missionaries from the 2000 census; and it vacated and remanded two cases for reconsideration in light of other recent decisions. It also denied review in twenty-six cases raising issues of church and state, and it carried three such cases on its docket over to the next Term.

This Issue Brief provides a detailed summary of Watchtower and Zelman and brief summaries of all other church-state cases on the Court’s docket in the 2001-2002 Term.