Berkley Center

Mitchell v. Helms involved a constitutional challenge to a program that provided government aid in the form of educational materials and equipment, such as library books and computer software, to public and private schools. The materials could only be used in teaching secular, neutral, and non-ideological programs. The Supreme Court upheld the program on three grounds. First, the program does not define its recipients by reference to religion, but is neutrally available to both religious and secular groups on a nondiscriminatory basis. Second, because the program allocates aid neutrally, the program does not result in government indoctrination of religion by incentivizing modification of religious beliefs in order to obtain aid. Finally, the requirement that the aid be used only for secular classes was enough to ensure that the funds are not used for an impermissible purpose; while it is possible that materials could be diverted for use in religious classes, there was no evidence of widespread use of materials in violation of the statute. For the foregoing reasons, the Court held that the program did not violate the Establishment Clause.