Everson Summary from Oyez

 

 From Oyez:

Facts of the case

A New Jersey law authorized reimbursement by local school boards of the costs of transportation to and from schools, including private schools. 96% of the private schools who benefitted from this law were parochial Catholic schools. Arch R. Everson, a taxpayer in Ewing Township, filed a lawsuit alleging that this indirect aid to religion violated both the New Jersey state constitution and the First Amendment. After losing in state courts, Everson appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on purely federal constitutional grounds.

Question

Did the New Jersey statute violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment?

Conclusion

A divided Court held that the law did not violate the Constitution. Justice Black reasoned that the law did not pay money to parochial schools, nor did it support them directly in anyway. It was rather enacted to assist parents of all religions with getting their children to school.

Justices Jackson, Frankfurter, Rutledge, and Burton dissented.  

 

The problem with Everson is not its holding concerning the bus subsidy. There are two problems:

1. The incorporation decision made by assertion without any analysis of the relevant issues.

2. Justice Black's use of the Wall of Separation Between Church and State metaphor, a phrase that is found nowhere in the text of the First Amendment.