## Facts

- A public school district permitted a local interfaith council to provide weekly religious instruction during regular school hours in public school classrooms for certain grades.
- Religious instructors were selected and paid by the council but were subject to approval and supervision by the school superintendent.
- Students whose parents signed consent cards were released from secular classes for 30–45 minutes of religious instruction; nonparticipants remained in their regular classes.
- School attendance was compulsory under state law, and the religious classes were scheduled within the official school day.
- A parent and resident taxpayer objected that her child was stigmatized for not attending and sought an order requiring the district to end the program, alleging violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
- State courts denied relief, upholding the program under state authority and rejecting the federal constitutional challenge.

## Issues

1. Whether a public school’s use of tax-supported classrooms and compulsory attendance mechanisms to conduct sectarian instruction during the school day violates the Establishment Clause as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
2. Whether the plaintiff had standing and properly preserved the federal constitutional claims for review.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held the plaintiff had standing as a resident taxpayer and parent of a child required to attend the public schools, and that the federal issues were adequately presented and decided in state court.
- The Court reversed the state-court judgment.
- The Court held that allowing sectarian groups to provide religious instruction in public school buildings during school hours, using the public school system and its compulsory attendance machinery, violated the First Amendment as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment.
- A dissent would have upheld the program as voluntary and as a permissible accommodation without official preference among faiths.

## Legal Principles

- The Establishment Clause, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, forbids a state from using the public school system to assist religious groups in providing religious instruction.
- Government violates the Establishment Clause when it uses tax-supported public property, integrates religious instruction into the official school schedule, and coordinates with religious organizations in administering the instruction.
- Formal voluntariness does not eliminate constitutional concerns where the program operates within a compulsory public school environment and carries the risk of indirect pressure on students who do not participate.
- Public schools must remain neutral regarding religion and may not administer or host sectarian teaching as part of the school-day program.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated an in-school released-time program because it used public school facilities and compulsory attendance structures, with school involvement, to deliver sectarian instruction during the school day, contravening the Establishment Clause as applied to the states.


Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Bd. of Educ., 333 U.S. 203 (1948)