Mueller v. Allen

Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388 (1983) was a United States Supreme Court case examining the constitutionality of a state tax deduction granted to taxpaying parents for school-related expenses, including expenses incurred from private secular and religious schools. The plaintiffs claimed a Minnesota statute allowing tax deductions for public and private school expenses alike had the effect of subsidizing religious instruction because parents paying tuition to religious schools received a larger deduction than parents of public school students who incur no tuition expenses. In a 5-4 decision, the Court upheld the statute. The majority affirmed that the benefit was religiously neutral because the deduction applied to sectarian and nonsectarian tuition equally and that the choice of religious or non-religious instruction was made by individual parents, not the state. The dissenting justices' opinion argued that the tax deduction was not permissible because it was an indirect government subsidy of religion and provided a financial incentive to parents to send their children to religious schools.

Background

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits laws which advance the establishment of any religion, thus barring any government sponsored religious instruction. Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment to the constitution in 1868, the Supreme Court's reviews of First Amendment disputes were minimal because the court only maintained jurisdiction to consider challenges against laws passed at the federal level. Everson v. Board of Education (1947) was the first case decided by the Court to apply the Establishment Clause prohibition to non-federal legislation.^[1] The decision in Everson established two criteria by which to judge any governmental legislation enacted anywhere within the United States: the action must have a secular purpose and that purpose must be the primary effect of the action. Following a 1971 decision by the Supreme Court, a third condition was incorporated. The resulting three pronged test-the so-called Lemon test- prescribes that for any governmental policy or legislation to satisfy the Establishment Clause, it must have a secular purpose, its primary effect must not the advancement or inhibition of religion, and it must not create an excessive entanglement between religion and government.^[2] In Mueller, the plaintiff claimed that the primary effect of the Minnesota law was the advancement of religion because the majority of taxpayers benefiting from the legislation were parents paying their children's tuition to private religious schools.

Opinion

Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion affirming the decisions of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota and the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that the Minnesota statute (§ 290.09, subd. 22) was constitutional. The law allowed state taxpayers to an income tax deduction for any expenses toward their children's tuition, textbooks and transportation to school. The deduction was limited to $500 per student in elementary school and $700 per student in middle and high schools. The statute excluded deducting any expenses for "instructional books and materials used in the teaching of religious tenets, doctrines or worship, the purpose of which is to inculcate such tenets, doctrines or worship". The plaintiffs were unsuccessful contending that the tax deduction provided financial assistance to religious schools, and that to assure no deduction was made for textbooks containing religious teachings the state became excessively entangled with religion.

Rehnquist noted that the statute was facially neutral on religion, and rejected the plaintiff's argument that its religious partiality was evidenced by the fact that 96% of the private schools in Minnesota were sectarian institutions.

Dissent

Justice Marshall wrote the dissenting opinion in which three other justices joined. Though the tax credits were available to all parents, in actual practice the chief benefit went to those parents whose children attended the parochial schools. "Parents who send their children to free public schools are simply ineligible to obtain the full benefit of the deduction except in the unlikely event that they buy $700 worth of pencils, notebooks, and bus rides for their children." So far as the First Amendment was concerned, Marshall added, a tax credit did not differ from a direct grant to parents, and that had already been found unconstitutional.

Consequences and aftermath

Mueller v. Allen marked a turning point in Establishment law and for the next twenty years the Supreme Court ruled more favorably where government fostered aid or benefits were deemed religiously neutral and was extended to all equally, irrespective of whether such benefits were favorable to individuals in exercising their privately held religious interests. The Court became disinclined to overturn laws that did not disqualify religiously based interests where the direct beneficiaries of the legislation in question were individuals rather than religiously affiliated institutions.^[2]

Following the decision in Mueller, "private choice" was a key element extended to subsequent Establishment court decisions over government sponsored school vouchers, the most significant being Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002). Where direct aid was funneled instead to religious schools, the Court focused instead on whether or not the policies at issue provided sufficient controls to ensure the assistance is not directed to religious instruction and that they do not lead to forbidden entanglements between the government and any religious institution.^[3]

Related cases

• Everson v. Board of Education (1947)
• Board of Education v. Allen (1968)
• Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)

See also

• Free Exercise Clause
• Endorsement test

References