Grumet v. Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School DistrictGrumet v. Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District
Lead Opinion
OPINION OF THE COURT
The Laws of 1989 (ch 748) (hereinafter chapter 748) created a new school district, the Kiryas Joel Village School District (hereinafter the Village District), consisting of the territory of the Village of Kiryas Joel (hereinafter the Village), a community of Satmarer Hasidim located wholly within the boundaries of the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District (hereinafter the Monroe-Woodbury District) in Orange County. The statute reflects a political solution to a lengthy dispute between the Monroe-Woodbury District and the residents of the Village, most of whose children attend private religiously affiliated schools within the Village, concerning the provision of special educational services to the Village’s handicapped children.
Despite earlier efforts at accommodating the undisputed needs of the Village’s handicapped children, resolution of the dispute, which centered on where the services had to be offered, was sought by way of litigation. The Court of Aрpeals ultimately held that the Monroe-Woodbury District "is neither compelled to make services available to private school handicapped children only in regular public school classes and programs, nor without authority to provide otherwise” (Board of Educ. v Wieder,
Plaintiffs, the New York State School Boards Association (hereinafter the Association) and two officers of thе Association, commenced this action against several State officials, including the Commissioner of Education and the Comptroller, seeking a judgment declaring chapter 748 unconstitutional. The two school districts moved to intervene as defendants and their motions were granted. Thereafter, the parties stipulated to the discontinuance of the action as to the State officials, although the Attorney-General continued to defend the constitutionality of the statute pursuant to Executive Law § 71. The parties cross-moved for summary judgment and Supreme Court declared the statute unconstitutional, resulting in this appeal.
The preliminary issue to be addressed is the question of standing. Defendants maintain that the Association and its officers, in their capacity as representatives of the Association, do not have standing to maintain this action. We agree. There is nothing in the. record to establish that the Association itself is a citizen, taxpayer within the meaning оf State Finance Law article 7-A and there is no claim that the Association has sustained any injury in fact. Accordingly, the Association does not have standing in its own right to maintain this action (see, Matter of Otsego 2000 v Planning Bd.,
The two individual plaintiffs, Louis Grumet and Albert W. Hawk, are named as party plaintiffs individually, as well as in their capacity as officers of the Association. In their individual capacity, each clearly meets the definition of citizen taxpayer contained in State Finance Law § 123-a and, therefore, they have statutory standing to maintain an action for declaratory or injunctive relief to prevent the unconstitutional disbursement of State funds (State Finance Law § 123-b [1]). It is undisputed that the Village District created by chapter 748 will receive State funding and, therefore, the constitutionality of that statute can be challenged in a citizen taxpayer action (see, Matter of Cario v Sobol,
Turning to the merits, we agree with Supreme Court that chapter 748 violates the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution and NY Constitution, article XI, § 3. The tripartite analysis under the Establishment Clause introduced in Lemon v Kurtzman (
According to defendants, the statute has the secular purpose of providing special educational services to handicapped children who are not receiving those services. This argument ignores two undisputed facts: the handicapped children of the Village were already entitled to receive those services pursuant to existing Federal and State law (see, 20 USC § 1400 et seq.; Education Law § 4401 et seq.), and those services were actually available to the Village children from the MonroeWoodbury District, within which the Village was located. The only reason that the children did not receive the services is their parents’ refusal to let them attend the public schools of
Assuming that the statute can be viewed as having a secular purpose, the second guideline of the Lemon test requires that the principal or primary effect must not advance religion. The Court of Appeals recently explained: "A particular concern under the 'effects’ prong is 'whether the symbolic union of church and state effected by the challenged governmental action is sufficiently likely to be perceived by adherents of the controlling denominations as an endorsement, and by the nonadherents as a disapproval, of their individual religious choices’ * * * Context determines whether particular governmental action is likely to be perceived as an endorsement of religion * * * Governmental action 'endorses’ religion if it favors, prefers, or promotes it” (New York State School Bds. Assn. v Sobol,
Defendants claim that the creation of a school district to provide educational services should be treated no differently than the creation of a village to provide municipal services, such as police and fire protection. The Supreme Court, however, has recognized that the relationship between government and religion in the education of children is a sensitive one and that government’s activities in this area can have a magnified impact, creating "an all-too-ready opportunity for
Defendants also contend that the provision of educational services to sectarian students and the segregation of those students from others who are not of that sect are incidental benefits which do not offend the Constitution (see, Mueller v Allen,
As previously noted, the educational services which the statute was intended to provide were already available to the Village children at public schools within the school district where they resided but outside the boundaries of the Village. If those services were inadequate or inappropriate, as defendants now suggest, existing remedies were available for the parents to pursue (see, Education Law § 4404). Instead, the parents claimed that the servicе had to be provided within the private schools in the Village or at a neutral site within the Village. When this claim proved unsuccessful (see, Board of Educ. v Wieder, supra), the parents continued to refuse the services available at the public schools of the Monroe-Wood-bury District.
Chapter 748 created a school district coterminous with the Village, which is inhabited by residents who are almost exclusively of one religious sect. The school board is controlled by members of that sect and the children who attend the public school established by the district are all of that sect. The services provided by the school were already available to the children of the Village, but their parents refused to permit them to mix with other students whose language, lifestyle and environment were not the product of the same religious sect. As a result of the statute, the services which were otherwise available at the public schools of the Monroe-Woodbury District are now provided by a public school that is controlled by and located within the religious community, and the children of the community who attend that school are effectively segregated from children of other religions. Regardless of whether the public school operated by the Village District is a neutral site, and regardless of how scrupulous the district is in maintaining the secular nature of the educational services
We emphasize that it is not the location of the public school in the religious community and the provision of public educational services to sectarian students that we find offensive to the Establishment Clause (see, Board of Educ. v Wieder, supra, at 189, n 3). The impermissible effect is the symbolic impact of creating a new school district coterminous with a religious community to provide educational services that were already available in an effort to resolve a dispute between the religious community and the school district within which the community was formerly located, a dispute based upon the language, lifestyle and environment of the community’s children created by the religious tenets, practices and beliefs of the community.
The dissent asserts that we are foreclosed from considering whether the religious tenets, practices and beliefs of the community played a role in the Village’s refusal to accept the special educational services offered by the Monroe-Woodbury District. The record, however, contains uncontradicted evidence of a direct link between thе language, lifestyle and environment of the community’s children and the religious tenets, practices and beliefs of the community. Based upon similar evidence and in a similar procedural posture, the Court of Appeals had little difficulty finding such a connection. "With an apparent over-all goal that children should continue to live by the religious standards of their parents, 'Satmarer want their school to serve primarily as a bastion against undesirable acculturation, as a training ground for Torah knowledge in the case of boys, and, in the case of girls, as a place to gather knowledge they will need as adult women’ ” (Board of Educ. v Wieder, supra, at 180 [emphasis supplied]). The stated reason for the Satmarer parents’ refusal of the services offered by the Monroe-Woodbury District was the emotional toll on the Satmarer children allegedly sustained upon "leaving their own community and being with people whose ways were so different from theirs” (supra, at 181).
Finding that the Satmarer’s handicapped children have "special psychological vulnerabilities * * * to exposure to the outside world”, the dissent is apparently of the view that the. special educational services offered by the Monroe-Woodbury District were not "protective” of these "special psychological vulnerabilities”. Pursuant to Federal and State law, handicapped children are entitled to an appropriate special education program and placement, and a parent who finds the placement unacceptable can seek review (Matter of Northeast Cent. School Dist. v Sobol,
The dissent’s alternative argument, that the creation of a new school district might constitute "a valid alleviation of a
Having concluded that even if chapter 748 has a secular purpose its principal or primary effect advances religion, we see no need to consider the third prong of the Lemon test. Although we have concluded that the Association and its officers lacked standing to maintain this action, we see no need to modify Supreme Court’s declaratory judgment, which did not grant any specific relief to the Association or its officers. The individual plaintiffs have standing to maintain this action as citizen taxpayers and Supreme Court granted the appropriate declaratory relief. Its judgment should, therefore, be affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
In my view, it was error for Supreme Court to have granted summary judgment declaring the legislation under review here (L 1989, ch 748) (hereinafter chapter 748) creating the Kiryas Joel Village School District (hereinafter the Village District), encompassing the territory of the Village of Kiryas Joel (hereinafter the Village) itself, to be facially invalid as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amеndment to the US Constitution or of article XI, § 3 of the NY Constitution.
I find the distinction, for Establishment Clause purposes, between a law’s facial invalidity and invalidity as applied to be far from clear in the case law (see, Bowen v Kendrick,
The invalidity of a statute under the Establishment Clause, facially or as applied, is to be determined by whether it contravenes one or more of the three elements of the test announced in Lemon v Kurtzman (
Regarding the "purpose” prong of the Lemon test, the legislative history of chapter 748 recites that it was enacted to break the impasse between the members of the Satmar Hasidic sect, who comprise the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Village, and the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District (hereinafter the Monroe-Woodbury District), whose territory contained the Village, over the public provision of special educational services for the handicapped children of the Village. As is more fully described in the Court of Appeals’
The foregoing secular purpose is sufficient to comply with the purpose facet of the Lemon test, which is only breached if the enactment was "motivated wholly by [a religious] purpose” (Bowen v Kendrick,
The ultimate ground for the majority’s invalidation of chapter 748, however, is its conclusion that the primary or principal effect of the legislation is to advance religion. I disagree. It bears emphasis that we are reviewing a determination that chapter 748 is facially invalid, made by Supreme Court in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. In deciding upon the facial validity of the statute, particularly on cross motions for summary judgment, I believe that this Court should not be looking for ulterior motives for the enactment. Rather, we are bound to look at chapter 748 as a response to the stated position of the Satmar sect, expressed not only in sworn affidavits here but consistently throughout the dispute over speciаl educational services for its handicapped children (see, Board of Educ. v Wieder,
Thus, on summary judgment the majority seems erroneously to be relying upon a description of Satmar religious precepts on educating the sect’s nonhandicapped children contained in the affidavit of Israel Rubin, Ph.D., submitted by plaintiffs, as establishing a religion-based motivation for the refusal of the Satmarer Hasidim to accept the special educational services offered by the Monroe-Woodbury District. Such a sectarian basis for their refusal, however, appears to be directly contradicted by the affidavit of the School Board President of the Village District submitted in the instant case as to the reason why the Monroe-Woodbury District’s offer of such services was refused. That affidavit states: "MonroeWoodbury has refused to accommodate the distinct language and cultural needs of the handicapped children in [the Village] by providing their education at a neutral site in their locality * * * Because Monroe-Woodbury’s restrictions on the educational services for the handicapped children from [the Village] would have a major adverse effect on their educational progress, the handicapped children in [the Village] were not able to receive the special educational services they needed from the public educational system.” The foregoing secular basis for the refusal to accept the services prоvided by the Monroe-Woodbury District was the same position asserted by the Satmarer Hasidim in the Board of Educ. v Wieder (supra) litigation. Indeed, the reason why the Court of Appeals in that case refused to entertain a belated claim that providing such special educational services at a neutral site in the Village was mandated under the Free Exercise Clause was that the Satmarer "in their submissions to the trial court insisted that, as a class, they should be exempted from public school placements only for nonreligious reasons—most particularly because of the emotional impact on the children of traveling out of Kiryas Joel” (supra, at 189 [emphasis in original]). And, in the same decision, after quoting from a treatise describing Satmar religious precepts on the education of children authored by the person whose affidavit the major
While I am not able to discern with complete confidence why the majority rejects the foregoing religious-neutral explanation by the Satmarer for their refusal to accept the special educational services of the Monroe-Woodbury District, the majority’s rationale seems to be based on either one of two propositions. The first of these is that the Satmarer’s explanation is disingenuous, i.e., that segregated education of even its handicapped children is in fact at the core of the Satmar sect’s religious beliefs. That proposition, however, is clearly contested by the Village District and, thus, cannot properly form the basis for granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. Beyond that procedural barrier to adopting this proposition, it has grave constitutional implications because it entangles a State civil court in factfinding on what is true Satmar religious doctrine on educating handicapped children (see, Tribe, American Constitutional Law § 14-11, at 1231 [2d ed]).
Alternatively, the majority’s decision may be read as concluding that the Satmarer’s professed secular explanation for rejecting the Monroe-Woodbury District’s offer of services is, nonetheless, religion based, because the Satmarer’s cloistered lifestyle and cultural outlook are derived from their religious beliefs. This, too, has grave constitutional implications under both religion clauses of the 1st Amendment. In effect, the majority is saying that the State may not respond to a bona fide secular interest of the Satmarer Hasidim, i.e., the psychological and emotional vulnerabilities of their handicapped children, because the culture bringing about the insecurities of these youngsters was "molded” by Satmar religious precepts. In a real sense, then, the majority is thus holding that merely because оf some link between their religion and a legitimate secular need, the Satmarer are disqualified from receiving from the State the purely secular services to meet that secular need. The case law simply does not support such a rigidly impenetrable wall between church and State as is implicit in this aspect of the majority’s decision. Indeed, such a holding conflicts with the United States Supreme Court’s decisions that a State does not violate the Establishment
Furthermore, in resolving doubts regarding the facial validity of a statute, a court may properly look to how it has been interpreted and applied by the governmental agency chargеd with enforcing it (see, Ehlert v United States,
In the absence of a religious purpose for creation of the Village District as a substitute for the Monroe-Woodbury District, the provision of purely secular special educational services to the Satmarer handicapped children in an atmosphere that is not only not "pervasively sectarian”, but actually totally devoid of religious influences, appears to be virtually indistinguishable from the provision of therapeutic and remedial services to isolated groups of parochial school students upheld by seven Justices of the United States Supreme Court in Wolman v Walter (
If not virtually the same as in Wolman v Walter (supra), the fact pattern which we are bound to accept in the present procedural posture of the case is far closer to Wolman than it is to Parents’ Assn. of P.S. 16 v Quinones (803 F2d 1235), the case most heavily relied upon by Supreme Court in granting
Despite the similarity between the instant case and Wolman v Walter (supra), as premised on the only facts which this Court should properly consider, the majority holds nonetheless that the statutory creation of the Village District has the primary effect of advancing religion because it will be perceived as a symbolic State endorsement of Satmar Hasidism. As I read the majority decision, this conclusion is based upon three factоrs: (1) the creation of a school district coterminous with a "religious enclave”, (2) the preexisting availability of special educational services for Satmarer handicapped children provided by the Monroe-Woodbury District outside the Village, and (3) that the true basis for the Satmarer’s refusal to accept the integrated special educational services for their handicapped children outside the Village was the conflict which fully integrated schooling would present to their fundamental religious beliefs, or with cultural values inseparable from their religious beliefs.
As to the majority’s supposition that the Satmarer’s refusal to accept the special education services offered by the MonroeWoodbury District was religion based, I shall not repeat the reasons for my strong conviction that, on a facial challenge, and particularly on a motion for summary judgment in that context, we are not permitted to go behind the publicly stated and sworn to position of the Satmarer Hasidim of a nonreligious motivation for the refusal.
At first blush, the two other factors relied upon by the majority might well be instinctively perceived as establishing that the State too readily acceded to the Satmarer’s "dictates” and, in some sense, thereby symbolically endorsed the sect’s religious tenets. However, the question of whether a statute’s
A fair and comprehensive analysis by an objective observer would have to take into account (1) the professed lack of religious motive of the Satmarer Hasidim for the creation of the Village District previously described, (2) that, uncontrovertably, the Satmarer would have been content had the Monroe-Woodbury District provided educational services at a neutral site in the Village, thus obviating many of the features of the creation of the Village District relied upon by plaintiffs to show symbolic endorsement of religion, (3) that, although the elected Board of Education of the Village District is likely to be entirely composed of Satmarer Hasidim, the Board lacks autonomy in appointing a Superintendent of Schools (see, Education Law § 1711 [3]) and the Superintendent is the official controlling the administration of the program (see, Education Law § 1711 [5]),
I think that the foregoing facts and circumstances would attenuate, in the eyes of an objective observer, the significance of the creation of a school district coterminous with the
Even if I were to agree with the majority, however, that the Satmar sect’s refusal to accept the Monroe-Woodbury District’s integrated special educational services for its handicapped children was based upon fundamental religious beliefs or upon cultural values inseparable from its religious beliefs, I would nonetheless hold that the accommodation of the State to those values and beliefs by the enactment of chapter 748 did not have the primary effect of advancing rеligion. Rather, the statute survives a facial challenge because its principal effect would then be to lift a substantial burden on the sect’s free exercise of religion. The legitimacy of the right of an insular religious sect, under the Free Exercise Clause of the 1st Amendment, to prevent exposure of their children to the worldly influences and inconsistent secular values of the public school system was recognized in Wisconsin v Yoder (
Here, the Monroe-Woodbury District had previously provided special educational services for Satmarer handicapped children at an annex to the sect’s private parochial school for girls in the Village (see, Board of Educ. v Weider,
I am conscious of the danger that an unduly broad application of an accommodation to free exercise values rationale to uphold any governmental benefit to religion could ultimately result in the Free Exercise Clause swallowing up the Establishment Clause (see, Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Sts. v Amos, supra, at 347 [O’Connor, J., concurring]; Note, The Free Exercise Boundaries of Permissible Accommodation Under the Establishment Clause, 99 Yale L J 1127, 1138-1139). It cannot be said at this procedural stage in the action, however, that chapter 748 crosses the line from a valid alleviation of a burden on the Satmarer’s religious precepts in separately educating their handicapped children to an invalid advancement of religion by promoting the Satmar sect’s ability to inculcate its religious values in educating those children. First, undoubtedly, the loss of remedial and rehabilitative educational services for Satmarer handicapped children is a discernible, substantial burden (see, Lee v Weisman, 505 US —, —
Where, as here, the challenged statute promotes Free Exercise values by alleviating a substantiаl government-imposed burden on a religious observance, the symbolism of a governmental endorsement is entitled to relatively little weight in determining whether the statute’s primary effect is to advance religion. As Justice O’Connor observed in Wallace v Jaffree (
Turning then to the remaining prong of the Lemon Establishment Clause test, i.e., whether the creation of the Village District leads to an excessive government entanglement with religion, I find that for purposes of a facial challenge a violation of that standard has also not been demonstrated. In aid to education cases under the Establishment Clause, the risk of excessive entanglement has been found to arise in three forms of potential, mutual church-State intrusiveness: (1) the need for intense surveillance of a publicly supported secular educational program conducted under the auspices of religious authorities, to insure the absеnce of any religious indoctrination, (2) dual and overlapping administration of the religious and secular parts of the educational program, necessitating a close, continuing relationship between secular and religious educational and administrative staff, and (3) political divisiveness, for example, from budgetary competition between secular and religious programs (see, Lemon v Kurtzman,
Based upon all the foregoing reasons, I have concluded that chapter 748 is not facially invalid under the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment. I would also hold it valid facially under article XI, § 3 of the NY Constitution, inasmuch as there is utterly nothing in the language of the statute or its legislative history establishing that the Village District is controlled by the Satmar sect. Accordingly, I would reverse Supreme Court’s judgment, grant defendants partial summary judgment declaring chapter 748 facially valid, and remit to Supreme Court for trial on the outstanding issues of fact necessary to resolve the validity of the statute as applied.
Mercure, Mahoney and Harvey, JJ., concur with Casey, J.; Levine, J. P., dissents in a separate opinion.
Ordered that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.
Notes
Moreover, the Board of Education’s ability to interject religion into the services provided to the children appears to be weak and improbable in light of the dominant supervisory and programmatic regulatory role of the State Department of Education over special educational services for handicapped children (see, Education Law § 4403; 8 NYCRR part 200).