Mueller v. Allen

Facts of the Case

The Minnesota statute allowed all state taxpayers, in computing their state income taxes, to deduct [Page 567]expenses incurred in providing “tuition, textbooks, and transportation” for their children attending public or nonpublic elementary or secondary schools. Insofar as the statute permitted the deductions to be used for children attending sectarian schools, state taxpayers challenged the constitutionality of the statute both facially and in its application.

The federal trial court granted the state's motion for summary judgment, holding that the statute was neutral on its face and in its application and did not have a primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.

The Court's Ruling

The Supreme Court granted certiorari and upheld the Eighth Circuit, relying on the three-part Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) test. Regarding the first part of test, that of secular purpose, the Court observed that the tax deduction had the secular purpose of ensuring that the state's citizenry was well educated as well as of assuring the continued financial health of private schools, both sectarian and nonsectarian. More broadly, the Court noted that “a state's decision to defray the cost of educational expenses incurred by parents-regardless of the type of schools their children attend-evidences a purpose that is both secular and understandable” (p. 395).

Concerning the second, or effects test, the Court decided that the deduction did not have the primary effect of advancing the sectarian aims of nonpublic schools, because it was only one of many deductions-such as those for medical expenses and charitable contributions-available under the Minnesota tax laws. In addition, the Court noted that the deduction was available “for educational expenses incurred by all parents, whether their children attend public schools or private sectarian or nonsectarian private schools” (p. 397, emphasis in original). The Court distinguished Mueller from its earlier decision in Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist (1973), which had invalidated a tax deduction only for students in nonpublic schools, by observing that no state imprimatur of religious schools could exist where “aid to parochial schools is available only as a result of decisions of individual parents,” in this case to enroll students in either public or nonpublic schools (p. 399).

The Court explained that the state deduction statute was facially neutral in ignoring the plaintiffs' claim that “96% of the children in private schools in 1978–1979 attended religiously-affiliated institutions,” in effect pointedly declaring that “the fact that private persons fail in a particular year to claim the tax relief to which they are entitled-under a facially neutral statute-should be of little importance in determining the constitutionality of the statute permitting such relief” (p. 401).

Finally, the Court refused to find a violation of the third part of the Lemon test, excessive entanglement. The Court found that evaluating whether textbooks qualified for tax deductions was not significantly different from the loaning of secular textbooks to religious schools, a process that the Court had upheld 35 years earlier in Board of Education v. Allen (1968).

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