Case Categories: Establishment Clause

• American Legion v. American Humanist Association (2019)

  American Legion v. American Humanist Association (2019) ruled that a longstanding cross erected to honor slain servicemen does not violate the First Amendment...

• Archdiocese of Washington. v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Authority (2020)

  The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a case in which the Washington Metro Transit Authority refused to allow an ad from the Catholic Archdiocese...

• Beatty v. Kurtz (1853)

  The Supreme Court ruling in Beatty v. Kurtz (1853) is an example of favoring church rights despite the First Amendment's clause against establishment of...

• Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892)

  Supreme Court Justice David Brewer called the United States a "Christian nation" in an 1892 opinion favoring a church who had violated a law on foreign labor...

• Commonwealth v. Wolf (Penn. Supreme Court) (1817)

  In 1817, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld a fine against a Jewish man who worked on a Sunday in violation of the state's law prohibiting work on the...

• Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020)

  The Supreme Court in 2020 ruled that states cannot create programs that exclude religious schools from programs that subsidize private schools with public money...

• Everson v. Board of Education (1947)

  Everson v. Board of Education (1947) said spending tax funds to bus children to religious schools did not breach the First Amendment establishment clause...

• Ex Parte Newman (Calif. Supreme Court) (1858)

  In Ex Parte Newman, the California Supreme Court in 1858 issued what is believed to be the only 19th-century case in the U.S. that overturned a law designed to...

• Flast v. Cohen (1968)

  Flast v. Cohen (1968) said that taxpayers had standing under the First Amendment to sue to prevent the use of their taxes to fund religious instruction...

• Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education (1948 )

  Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education (1948) overturned an arrangement whereby public schools provided religious training during regular school hours...

• Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (M.D. Pa.) (2005)

  In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (M.D. Pa. 2005), a judge ruled that requiring teachers to teach both Intelligent Design and evolution violated the...

• Larkin v. Grendel's Den, Inc. (1982)

  In Larkin v. Grendel's Den (1982), the Supreme Court said a state law giving churches the ability to veto liquor license applications violated the First...

• Larson v. Valente (1982)

  Larson v. Valente (1982) said a statute requiring churches who received less than 50 percent of their funds from members to file certain reports violated the...

• Lemon v. Kurtzman I (1971)

  Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) said the First Amendment prohibited government from providing funds to church-run schools. It established the Lemon Test for...

• Lemon v. Kurtzman II (1973)

  Lemon v. Kurzman II (1973) said the ruling prohibiting government from funding religious schools did not mean retroactive payments violated the First Amendment...

• Levitt v. Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty (1973)

  Levitt v. Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty (1973) said that payments to religious schools for state-mandated testing violated the First...

• Locke v. Davey (2004)

  Locke v. Davey (2004) said a scholarship program in Washington state that did not allow a student to major in theology did not violate his First Amendment...

• Quick Bear v. Leupp (1908)

  Quick Bear v. Leupp (1908) ruled that expenditures from Native American treaty trust funds for Catholic schools on reservations did not violate the First...

• Roemer v. Board of Public Works of Maryland (1976)

  Roemer v. Bd. of Public Works of Maryland (1976) said a program that gave grants to private colleges, including religious universities, did not violate the...

• Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995)

  Rosenberger v. Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995) ruled that the denial of student funds to a Christian-based magazine violated the First...

• Runkel v. Winemiller (1799)

  Runkel v. Winemiller (1779) gives insight into how early America viewed the First Amendment. The case involved the Maryland Court of Appeal's intervention in a...

• Shurtleff v. Boston (2022)

  The Supreme Court ruled in 2022 in Shurtleff v. Boston determined that, in this instance, flying a Christian flag on a city flagpole at the request of a...

• Sloan v. Lemon (1973)

  Sloan v. Lemon (1973) struck down a Pennsylvania law providing tuition reimbursement for children in private schools, finding it violated the First Amendment...

• Smith v. Swormstedt (1853)

  Although church and state institutions operate separately under the First Amendment, government has intervened on internal church matters such as in Smith v....

• Trustees of the New Life in Christ Church v. City of Fredericksburg (2022)

  The Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal in which a Virginia church argued that the government could not determine who was a minister or not in denying...

• Tudor v. Board of Education of Borough of Rutherford (N.J.) (1953)

  The New Jersey Supreme Court in 1953 ruled that Bible distribution in public schools by the Gideons violated the First Amendment establishment clause in Tudor v...

• Utah Highway Patrol Association v. American Atheists, Inc. (2011)

  The Supreme Court in 2011 declined to hear a case in which a lower court had ruled Utah Highway Patrol's roadside crosses violated the establishment clause of...

• Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)

  Wallace v. Jaffree (1985) struck down a state law requiring a minute of silence in public schools. The Court said the law had a religious purpose and violated...

• Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989)

  In his dissent in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), Justice Stevens said that a legislative declaration that life begins at conception violated...

• Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986 )

  Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind (1986) said a program that provided funds that a man used for religious education did not violate the...

• Wolman v. Walter (1977)

  Wolman v. Walter (1977) struck down parts of a law that provided funds to nonpublic schools, including religious schools, as a violation of the First Amendment...

• Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002)

  In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the Supreme Court said a state program allowing taxpayer money to fund school vouchers did not violate the First Amendment...