Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), was a case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court ruled in an 8–0 decision that Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act (represented through David Kurtzman) from 1968 was unconstitutional and in an 8–1 decision that Rhode Island's 1969 Salary Supplement Act was unconstitutional, violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The act allowed the Superintendent of Public Schools to reimburse private schools (mostly Catholic) for the salaries of teachers who taught in these private elementary schools from public textbooks and with public instructional materials. Lemon was a major precedent in federal and local courts until it was effectively overturned by Kennedy v. Bremerton School District in 2022.
Lemon test
The Court's decision in this case established the "Lemon test" (named after the lead plaintiff Alton Lemon), which details legislation concerning religion. It is threefold:
The "Purpose Prong": The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. The "Effect Prong": The principal or primary effect of the statute must neither advance nor inhibit religion. The "Entanglement Prong": The statute must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion. Factors to be considered include: The character and purpose of institution benefited. The nature of aid the state provides. The resulting relationship between government and religious authority.
If any of these prongs is violated, the government's action is deemed unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In the 1985 case Wallace v. Jaffree the Supreme Court further stated that the effect prong and the entanglement prong do not need to be examined, if the law in question doesn't have an obvious secular purpose. In Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos (1987) the Supreme Court noted that the purpose prong's requirement of a secular legislative purpose doesn't mean that the law's purpose must be unrelated to religion, because this would amount to a requirement, in the words of Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U. S. 306 (1952), at 314, "that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups." Instead, "Lemon's 'purpose' requirement aims at preventing the relevant governmental decisionmaker – here, Congress – from abandoning neutrality and acting with the intent of promoting a particular point of view in religious matters." As observed by the Supreme Court in McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union (2005), "When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates that central Establishment Clause value of official religious neutrality, there being no neutrality when the government’s ostensible object is to take sides."
The act stipulated that "eligible teachers must teach only courses offered in the public schools, using only materials used in the public schools, and must agree not to teach courses in religion." Still, a three-judge panel found 25% of the State's elementary students attended private schools, about 95% of those attended Roman Catholic schools, and the sole beneficiaries under the act were 250 teachers at Roman Catholic schools.
The court found that the parochial school system was "an integral part of the religious mission of the Catholic Church", and held that the Act fostered "excessive entanglement" between government and religion, thus violating the Establishment Clause.
Agostini v. Felton modification
The Lemon test was modified, according to the First Amendment Center, in the 1997 case Agostini v. Felton in which the U.S. Supreme Court combined the effect prong and the entanglement prong. This resulted in an unchanged purpose prong and a modified effect prong. "The Court in Agostini identified three primary criteria for determining whether a government action has a primary effect of advancing religion: 1) government indoctrination, 2) defining the recipients of government benefits based on religion, and 3) excessive entanglement between government and religion."
Later use
Conservative justices, such as Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, have criticized the application of the Lemon test. The test was compared to a "ghoul in a late night horror movie" by Justice Scalia in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District (1993).
