In Everson v. Board of Education, decided in 1947, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that a New Jersey program reimbursing parents for the cost of bus rides to Catholic parochial schools did not violate the First Amendment. The decision is remembered for two things far larger than the bus fares at issue: it was the first case to hold that the Establishment Clause applies to state and local governments, and it gave American constitutional law the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state.”1Justia. Everson v. Board of Education
What the Case Was About
A New Jersey statute let local school districts arrange and pay for children’s transportation to school, excluding only private schools run for profit. Under that law, the Ewing Township Board of Education adopted a resolution reimbursing parents for fares their children paid on public buses. The program covered both public school students and children attending Catholic parochial schools, where religious instruction sat alongside the standard academic curriculum.1Justia. Everson v. Board of Education
Arch R. Everson, a local taxpayer, sued to stop the reimbursements from reaching parents of parochial school children. He argued that using tax money to help children get to religious schools was government support for sectarian education. A New Jersey trial court agreed and struck the program down. The New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals reversed, and Everson took the case to the Supreme Court.2FindLaw. Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Tp. 330 U.S. 1 (1947)
The Constitutional Question
The First Amendment prohibits any “law respecting an establishment of religion.” Before 1947, that clause had been read to restrain only the federal government. Everson forced the Court to answer whether it also bound the states, and if so, whether New Jersey’s bus fare program crossed the line.
The Ruling
The Court did two things at once. It held, unanimously on this point, that the Establishment Clause applies to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.3Legal Information Institute. Early Cases and Everson v. Board of Education State and local governments were now held to the same standard of religious neutrality as Congress. Then, by a 5–4 vote, it upheld the New Jersey program.
Justice Black’s Majority Opinion
Justice Hugo Black wrote for the majority. His opinion combined a strict statement of what the Establishment Clause forbids with a practical conclusion that this particular program did not violate it.
The Wall of Separation
Drawing on the Virginia struggle for religious liberty led by Jefferson and Madison in the 1780s, Black laid down firm prohibitions: no government can set up a church, pass laws favoring one religion over another or religion over nonbelief, levy taxes to support religious activities, or take part in the affairs of any religious organization. Borrowing Jefferson’s phrase, he wrote that the Establishment Clause was meant to erect “a wall of separation between Church and State.”1Justia. Everson v. Board of Education
The Child Benefit Theory
Having stated those principles, the majority concluded that New Jersey had not breached them. The reimbursement money went to parents, not to the parochial schools. Its purpose was to help children get safely to accredited schools regardless of religious affiliation. Black compared the bus fares to other general public services that reach religious institutions incidentally, such as police protection, fire services, and public sidewalks.1Justia. Everson v. Board of Education
Cutting children off from a general safety program because their parents chose a religious school, Black wrote, would not be neutrality; it would be hostility. The First Amendment “requires the state to be neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary.”3Legal Information Institute. Early Cases and Everson v. Board of Education Black acknowledged that the statute carried the state to “the verge” of its constitutional authority.4Justia. Lemon v. Kurtzman
The Dissents
Four justices dissented: Robert Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, Wiley Rutledge, and Harold Burton. Both dissents made the same core charge: the majority had announced strict separationist principles and then upheld a program that violated them.
Justice Jackson captured the contradiction with a literary jab, comparing the majority to a Byron character “whispering ‘I will ne’er consent,’ — consented.”5Wikisource. Everson v. Board of Education – Dissent Jackson He predicted that the opinion’s sweeping language would prove more influential than its narrow result.
Justice Rutledge wrote the longer historical dissent. He agreed with Black about the Founders’ intent but drew the opposite conclusion, arguing that the Establishment Clause was meant to create “a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion.”1Justia. Everson v. Board of Education Rutledge rejected the idea that transportation could be separated from the religious education it made possible. Paying a child’s bus fare, he argued, was no less essential to the school’s mission than paying a teacher’s salary. If government could fund the ride, there was no principled reason it could not fund the rest.
What Everson Changed
The narrow holding was modest. The larger contributions reshaped Establishment Clause law for the rest of the century. By incorporating the clause against the states, Everson made it possible for the Supreme Court to review local school prayers, religious displays on public property, and the many other church-state disputes that arise from state and municipal action. And the “wall of separation” metaphor became the dominant frame for Establishment Clause thinking for decades after.
The Lemon Test
In 1971, the Court built on Everson in Lemon v. Kurtzman, striking down state programs that paid salaries for teachers at parochial schools. Lemon set out a three-part test asking whether a law has a secular purpose, whether its primary effect advances or inhibits religion, and whether it fosters excessive government entanglement with religion. The Court distinguished Everson on the ground that the bus fare money went to parents rather than directly to religious institutions.4Justia. Lemon v. Kurtzman
School Vouchers
The child benefit theory carried forward into modern voucher cases. In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), the Court upheld a Cleveland program that let parents use public funds at religious schools, reasoning that aid reaching religious institutions through the independent choices of private individuals does not violate the Establishment Clause.6Justia. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris The logic descended directly from Everson.
Where the Doctrine Stands Now
In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), the Supreme Court said it had “long ago abandoned” the Lemon test, calling it “abstract” and “ahistorical,” and replaced it with an approach tied to historical practice.7Congress.gov. Kennedy v. Bremerton School District: School Prayer and the Establishment Clause The Court has not overruled Everson. Its core holding that the Establishment Clause binds the states remains settled law. But the strict separationist language that made the case famous now carries less weight than it once did, and the narrow ruling on bus fares looks more durable than the grand principles wrapped around it. The tension Justice Jackson pointed to in 1947 turned out to describe the case’s long afterlife: the sweeping words drove the doctrine for half a century, then receded, leaving the modest result behind.