What Is The Supreme Court Case Of Lemon Vs Kurtzman

Lemon Vs. Kurtzman The Supreme Court Case Lemon V. Kurtzman challenged the importance of separation of church and state creating a stricter code in order to maintain equality regarding religious freedom. Alton Toussaint Lemon was born October 19th, 1928 in McDonough Georgia. A Pennsylvania instructor and father of a public school student, he also worked as a social worker. Civil rights activist, he lead as plaintiff in the case. Lemon worked as an Equal Opportunity officer for the U.S. Department of Energy and was on the board of the Parents Union for Public Schools. David Kurtzman, working for Pennsylvania's Nonpublic Elementary fought as defendant. The superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction in State of Pennsylvania was to

The state of Pennsylvania had violated the U.S constitution by passing the Non-public Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968. This act allowed Pennsylvania to be the first state to aid Nonpublic schools directly. As described through the act, "Aid is restricted to teachers' salaries and to textbooks and instructional materials in the fields of mathematics, modern foreign languages, physical education, and physical science." The law was violating the first amendment according to Lemon favoring one religion above the rest. It is stated that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." By providing specific aid to Nonpublic schools the teachers would benefit based off religious beliefs creating an inequality for others. This case was first fought at the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania but made its way to the Supreme Court due to the entanglement of religion in church and state issues. Kurtzman believed that the freedom of religion was expressed by the Nonpublic schools and therefore shouldn't affect public schools. By taking away that act of 1968 which had already passed, the funding would be eliminated

Kurtzman case. The Cheif justice Burger was labeled as a conservative but was known to take more liberal actions. The court was filled with four republicans; Burger, Harlan, Stewart, and Blackmun. While five democratic; Black, Douglas, Brennan, Marshall, and White. Judge Marshall did not participate in the case restraining from voting. In a similar case, Board of Education of Central School District No. 1 V. Allen, the courts favored Allen deciding that schools can lend textbooks to parochial schools because it's benefitting the parents of the students and not the actual organization. Rhode Island had a case, Early V. Di Censo, regarding the separation of church and state because their states was paying private schools teachers a 15% supplementary salary. The local taxpayers were paying for the private school teacher's salary. This case benefited from the Lemon V. Kurtzman since they set rules and restrictions after this