Everson v. Board of Education
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that applied the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to state law. Before this decision, the clause, which states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", imposed limits only on the federal government, while many states continued to grant certain religious denominations legislative or effective privileges.
| Everson v. Board of Education | |
|---|---|
Supreme Court of the United States | |
| Argued November 20, 1946 Decided February 10, 1947 | |
| Full case name | Arch R. Everson v Board of Education of the Township of Ewing, et al. |
| Citations | 330 U.S. 1 (more) |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Everson sued as a school district taxpayer, judgment for plaintiff, 132 N.J.L. 98, 39 A.2d 75; New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals reversed, 133 N.J.L. 350, 44 A.2d 333, cert. granted. |
| Subsequent | Rehearing denied, 330 U.S. 855 (1947). |
| Holding | |
| (1) The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is incorporated against the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (2) New Jersey law providing public payment of the costs of transportation to and from parochial Catholic schools is not in violation of the Establishment Clause. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Black, joined by Vinson, Reed, Douglas, Murphy |
| Dissent | Jackson, joined by Frankfurter |
| Dissent | Rutledge, joined by Frankfurter, Jackson, Burton |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV | |
It was the first Supreme Court case incorporating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as binding upon the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The case was brought by a New Jersey taxpayer against a tax-funded school district that provided reimbursement to parents of both public and private school students taking the public transportation system to school. The taxpayer contended that reimbursement given for children attending private religious schools violated the constitutional prohibition against state support of religion, and the use of taxpayer funds to do so violated the Due Process Clause. The Justices were split over the question whether the New Jersey policy constituted support of religion, with the majority concluding that the reimbursements were "separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function" that they did not violate the constitution. Both affirming and dissenting Justices, however, were decisive that the Constitution required a sharp separation between government and religion, and their strongly-worded opinions paved the way to a series of later court decisions that taken together brought about profound changes in legislation, public education, and other policies involving matters of religion. Both Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion and Justice Wiley Rutledge's dissenting opinion defined the First Amendment religious clause in terms of a "wall of separation between church and state."