Excerpts From U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Kiryas Joel Case

Following are excerpts from the U.S. Supreme Court's majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions in Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet.

JUSTICE SOUTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Village of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, N.Y., is a religious enclave of Satmar Hasidim, practitioners of a strict form of Judaism. The village fell within the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District until a special state statute passed in 1989 carved out a separate district, following village lines, to serve this distinctive population. The question is whether the Act creating the separate school district violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, binding on the States through the 14th Amendment. Because this unusual act is tantamount to an allocation of political power on a religious criterion and neither presupposes nor requires governmental impartiality toward religion, we hold that it violates the...