Central School District v. Allen

Board of Education of Central School District No. 1 v. Allen (1968) stands out as a significant ruling because in it the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of a statute from New York State that required local school boards to loan textbooks to children in Grades 7 to 12, including those who attended religiously affiliated nonpublic schools. In fact, until the Court, in 1997, expanded the parameters of the Child Benefit Test on a large-scale basis in Agostini v. Felton, wherein it permitted the on-site delivery of Title I services for poor student students, Allen represented the outer limits of permissible aid to students who attended religiously affiliated non-public schools.

In affirming the constitutionality of the law, the Supreme Court, in 1930, followed the lead of Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education (Cochran), wherein it upheld a similar textbook loan program. The difference between Cochran and Allen was that in Allen the Court relied on the First, rather than the Fourteenth, Amendment. In other words, in Cochran, the Court anticipated the later development of the Child Benefit Test that emerged in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing, while applying its own precedent from Pierce v. Society of Sisters wherein it concluded that just as the owners of the nonpublic schools had a property right under the Fourteenth Amendment, the state could not take away the textbooks without affording students and the schools due process of law. In Cochran, the Court unanimously upheld a statute that provided free textbooks for all students in the state, regardless of where they attended school. The Cochran Court upheld the law on the basis that because the textbook provision was not an unconstitutional taking of private funds for a private purpose under the Fourteenth Amendment, it was an acceptable public use of the funds because students, rather than their nonpublic schools, were the beneficiaries.

Allen traces its origins to 1965 when the New York State legislature initially modified the law dealing with textbook loans, expanding it to cover all students regardless of where they went to school; the court clarified these provisions the following year. The law did not require the textbooks to be the same as those used in the public schools but did dictate that the titles had to be approved by local school board officials before they could be adopted in the nonpublic schools. Further, the law covered only secular, not religious, books. Following a challenge from a local school board that was litigated at all three levels of the state [Page 144]court system, the Court of Appeals of New York, in 1997, upheld the law's constitutionality. In turn, the next year, the Supreme Court affirmed that the statute passed constitutional muster.

At the outset of its analysis, the Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Byron “Whizzer” White, reviewed the Child Benefit Test that it enunciated in Everson. At the same time, in reviewing its own precedent from Pierce and Cochran, the Court focused on the Establishment Clause issue.

In its Establishment Clause analysis, the Supreme Court relied on the two-part test that it enunciated only 5 years earlier in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp and Murray v. Curlett when it struck down prayer and Bible reading in public schools in Pennsylvania and Maryland, respectively. More specifically, the Court reasoned that the statute passed Establishment Clause analysis because its purpose was not to aid religion or nonpublic schools, and its primary effect was to improve the quality of education for all children. Further, the Court acknowledged that buses, which had no inherent religious significance, could be distinguished from textbooks, as the latter could be religious in nature. Still, in buttressing its position, the Court pointed out that the statute, which was limited to secular, rather than religious, books was available for all children regardless of where they attended school. In this way, the Court was unable to uncover any unconstitutional dimension in the law.

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