Skip to main content

Use Of Vouchers For Religious Schools Upheld

2002

In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that religious schools may participate in a voucher program in Cleveland in which the state provides financial assistance to parents who wish to send their children to a private school. The Court rules that the voucher proposal does not violate the establishment clause in the First Amendment because it has a neutral purpose – greater school choice for low-income families – and the vouchers go to the students’ parents, not to the schools, preventing “excessive entanglement.”