Meek v. Pittenger

374 F. Supp. 639, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12308

• Court: District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
• Decided: February 11, 1974
• Docket: Civ. A. 73-269
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPINION

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge.

In this action the plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of two Pennsylvania statutes, Act 194, July 12, 1972, Pa. Stat. tit. 24, § 9-972 and Act 195, July 12, 1972, Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 9-972. Both are claimed to transgress the first amendment in two separate respects, set forth as separate counts in the complaint. The First Count alleges that the statutes violate the establishment clause. The Second Count alleges that the statutes constitute compulsory taxation for the support of religion or religious schools and thereby interfere with the plaintiffs’ free exercise of their religion in violation of the free exercise clause. In both counts the complaint seeks an injunction against the expenditure of any funds pursuant to either statute. A three-judge district court was convened pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2281-2284. The case is before that court on final hearing.

I. THE PARTIES

There are three individual and four organizational plaintiffs. The individual plaintiffs are Sylvia Meek, Bertha G. Myers and Charles A. Weatherley, each of whom is a resident taxpayer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The organizational plaintiffs, American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Pennsylvania Jewish Community Relations Council, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, each has members who are taxpayers of the Commonwealth.

The original defendants are John C. Pittinger, Secretary of Education of the Commonwealth and Grace M. Sloan, Treasurer of the Commonwealth.

A number of parties having varying interests were permitted to intervene as defendants. The individual intervening defendants include parents of children who are receiving benefits under one or both statutes. Of these, the defendants John P. Chesick, Mrs. Robert Boozer, Seth W. Watson, Jr. and Anne P. Watson are parents of beneficiary children who attend nonpublic nonsectarian schools in Pennsylvania. The defendants Jose Diaz, Enilda Diaz, William Zimmerspitz, Nancy Zimmer spitz, Thomas J. Hassall, Marie Hassall, Daniel F. X. Powell and 'Anna T. Powell are parents of beneficiary children attending nonpublie church-related schools in Pennsylvania. One minor child of two of the intervening defendants is a mentally retarded child attending a church-related school for exceptional children. The defendant Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools is an organization of nonpublic nonsectarian schools attended by students who qualify as beneficiaries under the challenged acts. The defendant Springside School is a nonpublic nonsectarian school attended by students who qualify as beneficiaries under the challenged statutes.

II. THE PLEADINGS AND THE RECORD

Under the Court’s supervision the parties engaged in extensive pretrial negotiations which led to the entry of a joint final pretrial order containing twenty-eight stipulations of fact, a list of exhibits which were ultimately received in evidence, and a list of potential witnesses. At a hearing on plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction on September 10, 1973 the testimony of some of these witnesses was received. Pursuant to Rule 65(a)(2) the Court directed that the trial of the action on the merits be advanced and consolidated with the hearing on that application. The plaintiffs were afforded the opportunity to supplement the testimony offered on September 10, 1973, but elected to rest on that record. Thus the case is before us on final hearing on the pleadings, the stipulations set forth in the joint final pretrial order and the evidence received at the hearing on September 10, 1973. This opinion comprises our findings of fact and conclusions of law.

III. THE STATUTES INVOLVED

Acts 194 and 195, both of which became law on July 12, 1972, are amendments to the Pennsylvania Public School Code of 1949, Pa.Stat. tit. 24, §§ 1-101 to 27-2702, which embodies the Commonwealth’s comprehensive scheme for educating all children of elementary and secondary school age. The Code defines compulsory school age as not later than eight years and until seventeen years of age. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 13-1326. It provides :

Every parent, guardian, or other person having control of charge of any child or children of compulsory school age is required to send such child or children to a day school in which the subjects and activities prescribed by the standards of the State Board of Education are taught in the English language. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 13-1327.

The Code recognizes' that the requirements of the compulsory attendance law may be met at a nonpublic school so long as the subjects and activities in such school meet the standards of the State Board of Education and are taught in the English language. Id. The only exceptions to compulsory school attendance are those set forth in Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 13-1330. These include certain children fourteen years of age or older to whom employment certificates have been issued under authority of the Superintendent of Public Education, and children who have been found, after examination, to be so mentally retarded as to be unable to profit from further school attendance. The Commonwealth imposes the requirements of licensing and inspection by a State Board of Private Academic Schools on the nonpublic schools here involved, except for those operated by or under the authority of bona fide religious institutions. Pa. Stat. tit. 24, §§ 2731-2743. It imposes on principals and teachers in all schools, public and nonpublic, nonsectarian or religious, the duty of reporting to the district school superintendent the names and addresses of all children enrolled, and any failure of the children to attend school in compliance with the compulsory attendance law. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 13-1332. This reporting provision is enforced by a criminal sanction. Pa. Stat. tit. 24, § 13-1355. The Code evidences the strong public policy of the Commonwealth that every child of compulsory school age be educated for functional adult citizenship to the level of minimum state standards. Under various provisions of the Code the Commonwealth has provided to pupils attending public schools, through several levels of state and local officials, certain auxiliary services aimed at the achievement of such a minimum level of educational achievement. To the same end, under other provisions of the Code it furnishes to pupils attending public schools textbooks, instructional materials and instructional equipment.

Act 194 provides that acting through the same state and local officials as in the case of pupils attending public schools, the Commonwealth will provide auxiliary services

. to all children who are enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve in nonpublic schools wherein the requirements of the compulsory attendance provisions of this act may be met and which are located within the area served by the intermediate unit, such auxiliary services to be provided in their respective schools.

The Intermediate Units referred to are established by another part of the Code. All public school districts in the Commonwealth are assigned to one of twenty-nine such units which have the function of furnishing auxiliary services to such school districts. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, §§ 9-951 to 9-971. These services include but are not limited to curriculum development and instructional improvement services, educational planning services, instructional materials services, continuing professional education services, State and Federal agency liaison services, management services, classes and schools for exceptional children, audiovisual libraries and instructional materials centers. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 9-964. The Commonwealth finances these services. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, §§ 9-957, 9-970.

Act 194, section 1(b), defines auxilia-, ry services as:

guidance, counseling and testing services; psychological services; services for exceptional children; remedial and therapeutic services; speech and hearing services; services for the improvement of the educationally disadvantaged (such as, but not limited to, teaching English as a second language), and such other secular, neutral, non-ideological services as are of benefit to nonpublic school children and are presently or hereafter pro-, vided for public school children of the Commonwealth.

All the auxiliary services listed in section 1(b) are presently provided for public school children at public expense either through the Intermediate Units or through local public school districts.

Act 195, section 1(c) provides:

Loan of Textbooks. The Secretary of Education directly, or through the intermediate units, shall have the power and duty to purchase textbooks and, upon individual request, to loan them to all children residing in the Commonwealth who are enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve of a nonpublic school wherein the requirements of the compulsory attendance provisions of this act may be met. Such textbooks shall be loaned free to such children subject to such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of Education.

Textbooks are defined in section 1(b):

“Textbooks” means books, reusable workbooks, or manuals, whether bound or in looseleaf form, intended for use as a principal source of study material for a given class or group of students, a copy of which is expected to be available for the individual use of each pupil in such class or group. Such textbooks shall be textbooks which are acceptable for use in any public, elementary, or secondary school of the Commonwealth.

Section 1(d) limits the state’s obligation to purchase textbooks for loan to nonpublic school students to a total amount not exceeding ten dollars multiplied by the number of children enrolled in nonpublic schools.

Act 195, section 1 (e) provides:

Purchase of Instructional Materials and Equipment. Pursuant to requests from the appropriate nonpublic school official on behalf of nonpublic school pupils; the Secretary of Education shall have the power and duty to purchase directly, or through the intermediate units, or otherwise acquire, and to loan to such nonpublic schools, instructional materials and equipment, useful to the education of such children, the total cost of which, in any school year, shall be an amount equal to but not more than twenty-five dollars ($25) multiplied by the number of children residing in the Commonwealth who on the first day of October of such school year, are enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve of a nonpublic school in which the requirements .of the compulsory attendance provisions of this act may be met.

Instructional materials and instructional equipment are defined in section 1(b):

“Instructional materials” means books, periodicals, documents, pamphlets, photographs, reproductions, pictorial or graphic works, musical scores, maps, charts, globes, sound recordings, including but not limited to those on discs and tapes, processed slides, transparencies, films, filmstrips, kinescopes, and video tapes, or any other printed and published materials of a similar nature made by any method now developed or hereafter to be developed. The term includes such other secular, neutral, non-ideological materials as are of benefit to the instruction of nonpublic school children and are presently or hereafter provided for public school children of the Commonwealth.

“Instructional equipment” means instructional equipment, other than fixtures annexed to and forming part of the real estate, which is suitable for and to be used by children and/or teachers. The term includes but is not limited to projection equipment, recording equipment, laboratory equipment, and any other educational secular, neutral, non-ideological equipment as may be of benefit to the instruction of non public school children and are presently or hereafter provided for public school children of the Commonwealth.

Both acts have an identical severability clause:

If any part of this act is invalid, all valid parts that are severable from the invalid part remain in effect. If a part of this act is invalid, in one or more of its applications, the part remains in effect in all valid applications that are severable from the invalid applications.

Thus each program under both statutes must be considered separately, both facially and as applied. We are dealing, then, with four separate programs :

1. The auxiliary services program, under which public employees of the Intermediate Units furnish to children attending nonpublic schools the same auxiliary services as are furnished to children attending public schools.

2. The textbook loan program, under which the Commonwealth loans to children attending nonpublic schools textbooks for their individual use which are acceptable for use in public schools.

3. The instructional materials loan program, under which the Commonwealth loans to nonpublic schools the same instructional materials as are furnished for public school children. The difference between the textbook loan program and the instructional materials loan program is that the latter covers materials not intended for individual use, either because, in the ease of certain audio-visual materials, group use is more appropriate, or because unlike books, the materials are not readily portable, or because equipment is required for their use, or because unlike books they can readily be used by more than one student.

4. The instructional equipment loan program, under which the Commonwealth loans to nonpublic schools instructional equipment which like the instructional materials is not suitable for loan to individual students.

IV. PLAINTIFFS’ CONTENTIONS

Plaintiffs contended, prior to the conclusion of final hearing, that each of the four programs was facially unconstitutional both under the establishment clause and under the free exercise clause, and that each of the programs as applied was unconstitutional under both clauses. After both sides had rested, however, plaintiffs moved to amend the complaint to limit it to an attack on the statutes on their face, so as to eliminate any res ad judicata effect of a judgment insofar as the acts were construed and applied by the Commonwealth defendants. We permitted both sides to file briefs on that motion. We conclude that it would be improper, the case having been fully tried, to permit what would amount to a voluntary dismissal of a major part of it, at that stage. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(a)(2); Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a). Thus we must dispose .of plaintiffs’ contentions both of facial unconstitutionality and of unconstitutionality as applied, and both of violation of the establishment clause, Count I, and of interference with plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion, Count II.

V. STANDING ISSUES

The defendants challenge the standing, both of the individual and of the organizational plaintiffs. The individual plaintiffs are taxpayers of the Commonwealth. As such they have standing to challenge a Commonwealth expenditure of funds which they contend is prohibited by the establishment clause. Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968). The organizational plaintiffs all have members who are taxpayers of the Commonwealth. Though their standing is not as clear as that of the individual plaintiffs, we conclude that they have standing, by virtue of the their members’ status as taxpayers, to challenge a Commonwealth expenditure of funds which they contend is prohibited by the establishment clause. See, e. g., Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972); Association of Data Processing Service Organizations, Inc. v. Camp, 397 U.S. 150, 90 S.Ct. 827, 25 L.Ed.2d 184 (1970). Thus both the individual plaintiffs and the organizational plaintiffs have standing to proceed with the first count.

The factual allegation upon which the second count is predicated is in paragraph 9 of the complaint:

9. It is against the religious conscience of each of the plaintiffs to be forced by the operation of the taxing power to contribute to the propagation of religion in general and to religions to which he does not adhere in particular, or for the support or maintenance of sectarian schools or places of worship.

The count then alleges:

12. Each of the Acts on its face and as construed and applied by the defendants, violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution in that it prohibits the free exercise of religion on the part of the plaintiffs by reason of the fact that it constitutes compulsory taxation for the support of religion or religious schools.

The relief requested is not against collection of the tax, but against the expenditure of funds. Compare this with Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105, 63 S.Ct. 870, 87 L.Ed. 1292 (1943). There is no allegation as to the effect on conscience of members of any of the organizational plaintiffs, none of which claims to be of a religious character. The allegations of paragraph 9, quoted above, can refer only to individuals, since only they, and not the organizations, have consciences and exercise religions. Thus we conclude that the complaint does not allege facts which would permit the organizational plaintiffs to assert a free exercise claim. As to the individuals, the issue of their standing to assert a free exercise claim is intertwined with the merits of the second count, and will be discussed when we reach the disposition of that count.

YI. THE ESTABLISHMENT COUNT

A. The Governing Standards

The cumulative criteria developed by the Supreme Court for judging state expenditure for education against the prohibition of the establishment clause are clear in expression if not in operation.

First, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion . ; finally, the statute must not foster “an excessive government entanglement with religion.” Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 2111, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 “(1971).

The plaintiffs acknowledge that the Pennsylvania legislature had a legitimate secular purpose in enacting both Act 194 and Act 195.¹ The first criteria is not an issue as to any of the four programs. Thus we turn to a separate consideration of each program under the two remaining criteria, primary effect and undue entanglement.

Since the Court began in Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968), to refine what became its cumulative tripartite test it has held statutes authorizing expenditures for education unconstitutional on the primary effect ground in Levitt v. Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty, 413 U.S. 472, 93 S.Ct. 2814, 37 L.Ed.2d 736 (1973), in Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 (1973), and in Sloan v. Lemon, 413 U.S. 825, 93 S.Ct. 2982, 37 L.Ed.2d 939 (1973). It found no primary effect defect in the statutes involved in Board of Education v. Allen, supra, and in Hunt v. McNair, 413 U.S. 734, 93 S.Ct. 2868, 37 L.Ed.2d 923 (1973). Cf. Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 U.S. 664, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970), involving an exemption from taxation. In Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 29 L.Ed.2d 790 (1971), it sustained a federal statute after excising a minor feature found. to involve an impermissible primary effect. The Court did not reach the primary effect issue in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra. What amounts to an impermissible primary effect must, therefore, be gleaned by contrasting Levitt v. Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty, Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, and Sloan v. Lemon on the one side, with Board of Education v. Allen, Walz v. Tax Commission, Tilton v. Richardson and Hunt v. McNair, on the other.

Three New York programs were invalidated in Nyquist, the “maintenance and repair” provision, the tuition reimbursement provision, and the tax credit provisions. The “maintenance and repair” statute authorized grants totaling $30 to $40 per pupil directly to sectarian schools with no effective restriction on the use to which the maintenance and repair funds, could be put. The Court held that the “effect [of these grants], inevitably, is to subsidize and advance the religious mission of sectarian schools”. 413 U.S. at 779-780, 93 S.Ct. at 2969. The tuition reimbursement program provided unrestricted grants to parents to reimburse them for tuition paid at sectarian schools. The Court observed that such grants could not have been given directly to the sectarian schools in the absence of restrictions which would guarantee separation between the secular and the religious functions of the schools. It held that the unrestricted reimbursement of tuition had the effect of providing direct aid to sectarian schools by providing a direct incentive to parents to send children to such schools. As to the tax credits, it held these to be practically similar to the tuition reimbursement program. This direct incentive, too, was found to be insufficiently restricted to secular purposes. The Pennsylvania tuition reimbursement program invalidated in Sloan v. Lemon was found to be indistinguishable from the New York program invalidated in Nyquist. Justice Powell wrote in Sloan v. Lemon:

The State has singled out a class of its citizens for a special economic benefit. Whether that benefit be viewed as a simple tuition subsidy, as an incentive to parents to send their children to sectarian schools, or as a reward for having done so, at bottom its intended consequence is to preserve and support religion-oriented institutions. 413 U.S. at 832, 93 S.Ct. at 2986.

Levitt involved a New York statute providing for direct payments to private schools for expenses incurred in examination and inspection in connection with testing, maintenance of enrollment records, maintenance of pupil health records, and recording of personnel qualifications and characteristics. The payments were calculated on a per pupil basis. As with the maintenance and repair funds considered in Nyquist, there was no effective restriction as to the use to which the funds could be put, no duty to account for or refund sums not expended for state mandated secular purposes, and no differentiation between tests including religious content and tests which were purely secular. The Court held that "the aid that will be devoted to secular functions is not identifiable and separable from aid to sectarian activities,” and that therefore the statute had the impermissible primary effect of aiding religion. Id. at 480, 93 S.Ct. at 2819. From these cases we conclude that state expenditures will be held to violate the primary effect aspect of the tripartite standard if

1. the payment is made directly to a sectarian school and is not effectively restricted to use by that school for secular nonreligious purposes, or

2. the payment is made directly to parents as a reimbursement for expenses incurred in sending children to a sectarian school and the payment is not effectively restricted to reimbursement for expenses for identifiable secular nonsectarian pupil activities or needs.

Board of Education v. Allen, supra, upheld against a primary effect challenge New York’s textbook loan statute. That case relied heavily on Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), which had upheld New Jersey’s statute providing for reimbursement to parents of expenses incurred in busing children to sectarian schools. Tilton v. Richardson, supra, upheld against a primary effect challenge the Federal Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963, 20 U.S.C. §§ 711-58, which authorizes direct grants to institutions of higher education for academic facilities. The Act permits grants to sectarian institutions, but only for facilities that will be used for defined secular purposes. It expressly prohibits the use of the facilities for religious instruction, training, or worship. The Court held invalid, however, a section of the statute which imposed a twenty-year limitation on the federal government’s remedy of recapture of a facility’s present value if this prohibition is violated. Hunt v. McNair, supra upheld against a primary effect challenge the validity of the South Carolina Educational Facilities Act, S.C.Code Ann. § 22-41 et seq. (Cum.Supp.1971), which permitted secular institutions to finance the construction of buildings and facilities from the proceeds of revenue bonds issued by a State authority. As with the federal act upheld in Tilton v. Richardson, supra, the revenue bond device could not be used for facilities used for sectarian instruction or religious worship. The agreements between the State authority and the institution all contained inspection and reconveyance provisions to enforce the prohibition. From these cases we conclude that state expenditures for education will be held not to have the primary effect of advancing religion

1. if, although the payment is made directly to a parent, it reimburses the parent for an expense of a pupil activity clearly identifiable as secular or nonreligious, or

2. if, although a property or service is furnished directly to a student, it is clearly identifiable as a secular or nonreligious property or service, or

3. if, although a payment or service is furnished directly to a secular institution, its use is effectively restricted to the secular nonreligious activities of the institution.

The excessive entanglement refinement first appeared in Walz v. Tax Commission, supra, as a justification for the obvious benefit conferred upon religious institutions exempted by New York law from property taxation. Chief Justice Burger wrote:

The test is inescapably one of degree. Either course, taxation of churches or exemption, occasions some degree of involvement with religion. Elimination of exemption would tend to expand the involvement of government by giving rise to tax valuation of church property, tax liens, tax foreclosures, and other direct confrontations and conflicts that follow in the train of these legal processes. 397 U.S. at 674, 90 S.Ct. at 1414.

What started in Walz as a justification for exemption from taxation, however, became in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, the third criterion of the Court’s tripartite limitation upon expenditures. Statutes authorizing educational expenditures were held to be unconstitutional on the ground of excessive entanglement in that case, which involved Rhode Island and Pennsylvania enactments. Challenges to educational expenditure statutes on entanglement grounds were rejected in Tilton v. Richardson, supra, and Hunt v. McNair, supra. Board of Education v. Allen, supra, was decided before the excessive entanglement criterion became explicit, but the Allen Court implicitly rejected an attack on that ground. See, e.g., 392 U.S. at 245, 88 S.Ct. 1923. What amounts to an impermissible entanglement of government in religion must, therefore, be gleaned by contrasting Lemon v. Kurtzman on the one side, with Board of Education v. Allen, Tilton v. Richardson and Hunt v. McNair, on the other.²

Significantly, in no educational expenditure case decided on entanglement grounds has the Court ruled that the statute in question was facially unconstitutional. In the case of the Rhode Island statute there was a lengthy evidentiary hearing which resulted in extensive findings by the district court on the potential -for excessive entanglement from comprehensive, extensive and continuing state surveillance. See 403 U.S. at 615, 91 S.Ct. 2105. In the case, of the Pennsylvania statute the Court had before it a complaint which had been dismissed for failure to state a claim for relief. The allegations of the complaint described a statute and a religious school system similar to that of Rhode Island. The dismissal was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings.³ In Tilton v. Richardson, supra, the appeal arose after an evidentiary hearing in which a three-judge district court made findings respecting the relationship between the religious institutions and the government. The Court looked at the record facts and concluded that considering the nature of the institutions, the nonideological character of the aid, the minimal surveillance required for enforcement of the prohibition against use of facilities for religious purposes, and the noninvolvement of the government in the day-to-day financial decisions of the institutions, no excessive involvement could be found. Hunt v. McNair also involved a case in which a record had been developed in the trial court. Looking at that record the Court reached the same conclusion as in Tilton v. Richardson. In Board of Education v. Allen, the Court said:

We are unable to hold, based solely on judicial notice, that this statute results in unconstitutional involvement of the State. . . . 392 U.S. at 248, 88 S.Ct. at 1929.

From these cases it seem clear to us that a decision on the entanglement criterion will in most if not all cases require a factual inquiry rather than a resort to examination of the face of the statute in issue or to judicial notice about how it may be expected to operate. And as the Court makes clear in Hunt v. McNair, the burden of establishing the facts rests with the plaintiff challenging the expenditure.

The Rhode Island and Pennsylvania statutes considered in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, both involved payments either directly to religious schools or directly to teachers employed in such schools for teaching secular subjects. In the Rhode Island case it was found, and in the Pennsylvania case alleged, that the teacher salary supplements would be paid to teachers in schools in which an effort was made to create a pervasive religious atmosphere. The teachers were found, or alleged to be, under religious control or discipline. Religious hierarchical authority was found or alleged to pervade the school system. As Chief Justice Burger wrote with respect to Rhode Island:

The teacher is employed by a religious organization, subject to the direction and discipline of religious authorities, and works in a system dedicated to rearing children in a particular faith. These controls are not lessened by the fact that most of the lay teachers are of the Catholic faith. Inevitably some of the teacher’s responsibilities hover on the border between secular and religious orientation. 403 U.S. at 618, 91 S.Ct. at 2114.

Because of these findings (Rhode Island) or allegations (Pennsylvania) about the nature of the schools and the character of the teachers, the direct subsidies for teacher salaries involved in Lemon v. Kurtzman presented for the states an'acute problem in assuring that only secular and not religious instruction and activities was being supported. As Chief Justice Burger observed:

A comprehensive, discriminating and continuing state surveillance will inevitably be required to ensure that these restrictions are obeyed and the First Amendment otherwise respected. Unlike a book, a teacher cannot be inspected once so as to determine the extent and intent of his or her personal beliefs and subjective acceptance of the limitations imposed by the First Amendment. These prophylactic contacts will involve excessive and enduring entanglement between state and church. Id. at 619, 91 S.Ct. at 2114.

He also observed that the financial limitations of the Rhode Island program required that the state examine the school’s records to determine how much of its total expenditures is attributable to secular education and how much to religious activity. He wrote:

This kind of state inspection and evaluation of the religious content of a religious organization is fraught with the sort of entanglement that the Constitution forbids. Id. at 620, 91 S.Ct. at 2115.

Contrasting Lemon v. Kurtzman with Board of Education v. Allen, Tilton v. Richardson and Hunt v. McNair, we conclude that a statute authorizing expenditures for education will be held to involve undue entanglement between government and religion if (a) it authorizes • the payment of money or the furnishing of materials or facilities to a religious institution, and (b) the purpose of the payment or the nature of the materials or the facilities, and the character of the institution, are such that the government, in order to assure only secular use of the payment, materials or facilities, will be required to be involved in the internal operations of the institution, both religious and secular, on a continuing basis. But a statute authorizing expenditure for education will not be held to involve undue entanglement between government and religion even though it authorizes the payment of money or the furnishing of materials, equipment or facilities to a religious institution, if the expenditure is limited to secular uses and if from the character of the institution, the purpose of the payment and the nature of the materials or facilities, we find that it will not be necessary, in order to assure only secular use, for government to be involved in the internal operations of the institution, secular and religious, on a continuing basis. Application of the entanglement criterion, in short, requires a discrete analysis of each program to determine to what extent intrusion and surveillance will be required.

Justice Powell in Nyquist referred to “the Scylla and Charybdis of ‘effect’ and ‘entanglement.’ ” 413 U.S. at 788, 93 S.Ct. at 2973. The Straits of Messina does, however, provide a channel for the careful seaman. We do not assume that the Court has made the arms of its primary effect test so long or the currents of its entanglement whirlpool so wide that it has forever frozen the permissible forms of governmental educational expenditure. The plaintiffs’ position as to facial unconstitutionality of each of the four programs depends upon an opposite conclusion.

One additional factor must be taken into account. That factor is the constitutional status of the relationship between the Commonwealth, children, and parents. It is clear that the Commonwealth has an interest in the health and education of children that in many respects is superior to the interests of parents or the wishes of children. The compulsory school attendance law, Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 13-1327, is a manifestation of that interest. So, too, are laws requiring medical and dental examinations, and other mandatory health programs. E.g., Pa.Stat. tit. 24, §§ 14-1401 to 14-1422; see Law of March 10, 1949, P.L. 30, art. XII, § 1303 (repealed 1972) (smallpox vaccination). At the same time some liberty to choose in the matter of education has been recognized as constitutionally protected. E.g., Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510, 45 S.Ct. 571, 69 L.Ed. 1070 (1925). Whether that liberty is a corollary of the free exercise clause of the first amendment or is one of the rights retained by the people to which the ninth amendment refers, or is one of those rights deemed fundamental but not the subject of an express guarantee, is of little moment. If the personal liberty of choice in education is constitutionally protected, the state must show a compelling state interest for restricting it, and the restriction may go no further in restricting it than is required for the protection of that interest. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972); cf. Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 93 S.Ct. 739, 35 L.Ed.2d 201 (1973); Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, 93 S.Ct. 705, 35 L.Ed.2d 147 (1973); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438, 92 S.Ct. 1029, 31 L.Ed.2d 349 (1972); Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965); Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500, 84 S.Ct. 1659, 12 L.Ed.2d 992 (1964). Thus in legislating upon the education of children the state’s choice of means for the achievement of its educational objectives is not restricted only by the establishment clause, and a court considering a constitutional challenge to a state’s program must be mindful that the balance struck may be one as to which the alternatives for the achievement of those objectives are limited.

B. APPLICATION OF STANDARDS

1. The Auxiliary Services Program

The Pennsylvania Department of Education has issued guidelines for the implementation of Act 194. From these guidelines (Exhibit P-1) and from the testimony of witnesses a clear picture of the operation of the act emerges. The Intermediate Units have been designated as the responsible agencies for providing services and assignment of staff for such services to nonpublic school children within the geographic boundaries of the respective Units. The program of any Intermediate Unit for providing auxiliary services is subject to periodic evaluation by the Department of Education. The services provided must conform to the School Laws of Pennsylvania, the Regulations of the State Board of Education and procedures of the Department of Education. The staff providing the services is employed by the Intermediate Units. Provision of services is defined as “ . the delivery of auxiliary services requested by nonpublic school representatives, to children, through the providing of qualified personnel (whether through the use of staff members of the Intermediate Unit, or through the Intermediate Unit’s contracting with other public agencies or individuals), and through the supplying of supportive materials, equipment, and personnel, necessary to the proper rendering of such services.” (Exhibit P-1, § 1.3). The auxiliary services listed in Act 194 are defined in the guidelines as follows:

1.5 Guidance, counseling, and testing means (but is not limited to) such services as are delineated in Title 22, Pennsylvania Code, Section 7.13.

1.6 Psychological services shall mean those diagnostic and evaluative services for children, consultation and counseling with students, parents and members of the professional staff relative' to understanding the dynamics existent in a student, class, or school.

1.7 Exceptional children shall mean “children of school age who deviate from the average in physical, mental, emotional or social characteristics to such an extent that they require special education facilities or services.” (Section 1371, School Laws of Pennsylvania)

1.8 Services for exceptional children means such educational and other services for exceptional children which are generally recognized to be of particular benefit to exceptional children enrolled in nonpublic schools.

1.9 Remedial and therapeutic services shall mean those corrective services applied following identification, including, but not limited to medical, psychological, and psychiatric as well as remedial measures.

1.10 Speech and hearing services shall mean those services provided to children whose speech or hearing deviates from accepted standards of their individual social and cultural community in such a way as to interfere with the communication process.

1.11 Services for the improvement of the educationally disadvantaged shall include but are not limited to those services necessary to assist a student to perform at the grade level for his age and potential.

Each of these services is rendered not as a part of the nonpublic school’s general instructional program, but on an individualized basis to specific children determined to be in need of educational services beyond that available in a general instructional program. Nor is the program open ended. As both the statute and the guidelines make clear, only such auxiliary services are available as are provided for public school children.

The Commonwealth’s interest in providing such individualized auxiliary services to children attending nonpublic schools is strikingly illustrated by the evidence with respect to speech and hearing services. Since 1949 the Commonwealth has required that every child of school age be given, at specified intervals, a hearing test by a school nurse or medical technician. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 14-1402(a) (2); see Law of March 10, 1949, P.L. 30, art. XIV, § 1422. A summary of the audiometric testing program in the School District of Philadelphia in the school year 1967-68 (Exhibit D-19) discloses:

Pupils Tested Pupils Failed %_ Unable to Test

*

%

Public 108,139 5,319 4.7 164 0.2

Parochial 68,448 3,561 5.2 49 0.8

Private 2,356 107 4.2 10 0.4

Martin School 221 213 96.4 8 3.6

Archbishop Ryan Memorial Institute 66 54 81.8 12 18.2

There is no reason to believe that these results would be untypical of other Intermediate Units. P. D. Stopper, a speech therapist employed by the Carbon-Lehigh Intermediate Unit to render speech therapy services pursuant to Act 194 testified as follows:

Q Very well. As a professional speech therapist, is it your observation that there are many children who have speech problems?

A I think with that question I should answer it giving you what our professional journals say. The American Speech and Hearing Association publishes a journal or several of them and in that they have indicated that there are between five and up to ten per cent of the public school population that have speech problems. The reason I emphasize “public school” is because that’s where the research was done.

Now, when I took this job, out of simple professional interest, I decided to find out what types or what percentages my schools had in relation to what my profession says there should be. In some schools I found it rather high. There was one up to 19 per cent which I thought was extreme. There was one around 15. There were several around 11 per cent. The average was above what the American Speech and Hearing Association said there should be, and I thought that was an interest of the profession.

Q What schools are they, public or non-public, to which you are referring now ?

A I work in the non-public schools.

Q Now, therefore, you find that there are children who need speech therapy in both public and non-public schools?

A That is correct. I do find, though, that there is a greater need in the non-public schools, and the reason I say that is because it is almost like a frontier. There have not been services — well, there have — let’s say there have been services, but they haven’t been adequate in any way.

For instance, out of the children that I have seen screened in my schools, I have located approximately 350 children that could use speech therapy, but when I went into those schools, the only children that had been receiving speech therapy was the No. 17. There were 17 that were being taken from the parochial school into the public school to get their speech therapy.

Q To what do you attribute this lack of service, to what do you attribute the fact that only 17 had had the speech therapy?

A I have read what was published by my Intermediate Unit as the guidelines for accepting children from a parochial or non-public school into a public school speech program. That guideline said that it was up to the speech therapist’s time and discretion whether to accept the children in their programs or not.

One of the problems there was, I think it was mentioned by the psychologist, transportation for one, but discretion of the speech therapist was also important, I found.

Q What do you mean by “the discretion of the speech therapist” ?

A Well, if she could fit it into her case load, that was the major one, if she could fit it in, and if she already had a full case load, many times the children were refused.

Q Was it your observation that she did or did not often have a full case load of public school children?

A I would say many times that she had a full one, but I would also say that there was one that I know of specifically who came in. She was a public school therapist. And she came in a half hour earlier to take some children from a parochial school. So it depended on the therapist. (Tr. 35-37)

Dr. D. A. Horowitz, Associate Superintendent for Schools For Special Services of the Philadelphia School District,⁴ testified with respect to auxiliary services :

Q Are these auxiliary services under Act 194 part of the ordinary regular school curriculum or program?

A In the public or non-public schools, sir?

Q Well, in the non-public school?

A Are they? Generally not, to my best knowledge. They have existed in a rather spotty way and I say this only from second-hand information. (Tr. 45-46)

Q Now, Mr. Horowitz, in your professional opinion, focusing now on services under Act 194, in your opinion, can such services be afforded non-public school children at public centers ?

A At public schools ?

Q Yes.

A No, I don’t think so.

Q Why is that?

A Well, for many reasons, and depending on the specific, you know, item to which you are referring, where this equipment is being used, it is being fully utilized and cannot carry additional service or service time given to additional pupils who might come in plus the logistical problems of bringing in children or groups of children for a specific piece of an instructional program at a given time of the day and given weeks of the year. Logistieally it just isn’t possible. (Tr. 49)

Thus, taking hearing problems as an example, the Commonwealth was confronted with the reality that a very substantial number of nonpublic school children were suffering from untreated hearing deficiencies; deficiencies which are critical impediments to the entire learning process. The logistical problems of providing the services at public centers were at least formidable, if not insurmountable. The legislature chose to meet the problem by sending the therapists to the pupils. The same reality applied to the other learning auxiliary services listed in Act 194.

We hold that none of the specific auxiliary services listed in Act 194 has the primary effect of aiding religion. Each has the primary effect of meeting the state’s primary objective of assuring that individual students receive those individualized services, outside the general program of instruction of their school, necessary for their individual progress in learning. It is true, of course, that a child with vision defects, provided glasses, will be enabled to read the Bible, as a child with hearing defects, provided a hearing aid, will be enabled to hear the word of God, and as an emotionally disturbed child, given psychological or medical therapy, may become receptive to religious training. But the benefit to religion in such instances is clearly secondary, and such secondary benefit exists no less for children attending public than for children attending nonpublic schools.

Plaintiffs focus, however, not so much on the specific auxiliary services listed in Act 194, but on the phrase “. . . such other secular, neutral, non-ideologieal services as are of benefit to nonpublic school children and are presently or hereafter provided for public school children of the Commonwealth.” This phrase, they suggest, makes the act so open ended that it will permit the Commonwealth to furnish teachers for the general instructional programs of the nonpublic schools. This, they urge, is prohibited by Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra. Lemon v. Kurtzman did not deal with public employees. But we need not here decide if that difference is critical. We do not believe Act 194 is subject to the open ended construction plaintiffs suggest. First, it was not written in a vacuum. The Intermediate Units were already providing auxiliary services to public schools, and these did not include furnishing teachers for the general instructional programs of the school districts. Second, the guidelines issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Education (Exhibit P-1) disclose no intention to apply Act 194 in an open ended manner. The guidelines suggest, rather, an ejusdem generis construction. Third, the plaintiffs have produced no evidence from which we could infer any likelihood of the open ended construction they suggest.

We note that John Jarvis, headmaster of Lancaster County Day School, a private nonsectarian school, testified:

Q And I show you this pamphlet marked D-24 which I have already identified. Would you hold that up to the members of the court and explain what that is and what services are available to you now that were not heretofore which were also available to the public schools in your area ?

A Well, this has just been an opening up of certain opportunities for us that we really have not had before. There are a series of very excellent workshops being planned by Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit in which we are invited to participate. Not only are we invited, but secondly, we now would be able to apply under Act 194 for funds to cover the expenses of these workshops. (Tr. 85)

It is not at all clear that Act 194 authorizes auxiliary services to teachers in the nature of continuing professional education. The guidelines of the Pennsylvania Department of Education do not mention programs for teachers. It is clear that Intermediate Units are authorized by another statute to provide such services to teachers in public schools. Pa. Stat. tit. 24, § 9-964. If Mr. Jarvis is correct that nonpublic school teachers will by virtue of Act 194 be admitted to the continuing professional education programs conducted by the Intermediate Units, we see no primary effect difficulty. The content of the programs obviously will be secular since they are entirely within the control of the Intermediate Units. Assistance to the religious mission of the sectarian schools is at least as remote and secondary in effect as when the Commonwealth permits potential teachers in such schools to attend its Commonwealth-supported universities.

Plaintiffs urge that Act 194 fails the entanglement test because it provides “. . . such auxiliary services to be provided in their respective schools.” The act does require contact between personnel of the Intermediate Units and personnel of sectarian schools. The Commonwealth, recognizing the logistical realities, provided for traveling therapists rather than traveling pupils. There is no evidence whatsoever that the presence of the therapists in the schools will involve them in the religious missions of the schools. The degree of interference by the Commonwealth in the general instructional mission of the religious schools would be greater, not less, if instead of sending therapists to the schools it required that pupils needing auxiliary services be dismissed from school and transported to public centers. The degree of contact between the religious teachers and the personnel of the Intermediate Units would be approximately the same. Unlike the programs considered in Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, no continuing audit of the nonpublic schools’ general instructional program or of their finances is necessary to insure that the services provided remain secular and nonideologieal. The notion that by setting foot inside a sectarian school a professional therapist or counselor will succumb to sectarianization of his or her professional work is not supported by any evidence. Pennsylvania has for many years sent public health nurses into nonpublic schools to carry out its mandatory student health program. Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 14-1402. We are sure that if the professionals in this program had become tainted by religion, evidence of the taint would have been produced. The Intermediate Units will exercise the same controls over its professional employees serving nonpublic school children as they exercise over public school employees generally. This is not a case of potential interference with the general instructional program of a religious institution.

If Act 194 permits teachers from sectarian schools to attend continuing education workshops conducted by the Intermediate Units, we find no entanglement danger. The Intermediate Units may not conduct programs of instruction in religion. If admitted, religious teachers may attend or not, but their attendance will involve no actual or potential interference by the Commonwealth with the instructional program or the financing of religious institutions.

We find that Act 194, both facially and as thus far applied (1) does not have the primary effect of advancing religion, and (2) does not involve the Commonwealth in an impermissible entanglement with religion.

2. The Textbook Loan Program

The textbook loan provisions of Act 195 are for first amendment purposes indistinguishable from the 1965 New York textbook loan statute upheld in Board of Education v. Allen, supra. Since 1885 Pennsylvania children attending public schools have been furnished textbooks for use in those schools free of cost. Law of June 25, 1885, P.L. 173, § 1 (now Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 8-801). The textbook loan provisions of Act 195 confer the same benefit on children attending nonpublic schools at which they can comply with the compulsory attendance law. The loan of textbooks under each statute is upon individual request. The textbooks, under each statute, must be books antecedently approved for use in the public schools. Under neither statute may religious texts be obtained, and the decision as to which texts qualify as secular, nonideologieal and neutral rests with the public authorities. The expenditure is for a clearly identifiable secular purpose. The only contact between the nonpublic schools and the Commonwealth authorities is the minimal contact involved in correspondence over processing the individual student book requests to those authorities, and in maintaining an inventory of the textbooks.⁵ This contact in no way involves the Commonwealth with the religious mission of a school, with the content of its general program of instruction, or with its finances. The textbook loan program is controlled by Board of Education v. Allen, supra, and Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education, 281 U.S. 370, 50 S.Ct. 335, 74 L.Ed. 913 (1930). We find that the textbook loan provisions of Act 195 both facially and as thus far applied (1) do not have the primary effect of advancing religion, and (2) do not involve the Commonwealth in an impermissible entanglement with religion.

3. The Instructional Materials Loan Program

The instructional materials loan program of Act 195 differs from the textbook loan program (1) in the nature of the materials loaned, and (2) in the recipient of the loan. The guidelines of the Pennsylvania Department of Education provide:

General Provisions

3.1 Intermediate units are hereby designated as the responsible agencies for providing instructional materials ... to children in the nonpublic schools within the geographic boundaries of the intermediate units Each intermediate unit shall comply with the appropriate procedures and regulations of the Department of Education and the appropriate sections of the Public School Code of Pennsylvania of 1949 as amended.

Program Operation

3.9 The implementation of the Instructional Materials . . . portion of Act 195 of 1972 shall conform to the School Laws of Pennsylvania, Regulations of the State Board of Education, and procedures of the Department of Education.

3.15 Purchasing of Instructional Materials

a. Each nonpublic school or the appropriate chief administrator shall submit a loan request on or before October 31 of the initial year and on or before March 15 thereafter for desired “Instructional Materials” not to exceed 80 percent of their total allocation for “Instructional Equipment” and “Instructional Materials” to the intermediate unit administering the provisions of Act 195.

b. The intermediate unit shall consolidate the loan requests and order the desired “Instructional Materials” in accordance with the Public School Code of Pennsylvania of 1949 as amended.

c. The intermediate unit shall develop a plan for inventory control.

3.16 Inventory of Instructional . Materials

a. Instructional materials loaned to the nonpublic schools shall be maintained on an inventory by both the nonpublic and the appropriate intermediate unit.

b. It is presumed that instructional materials on loan to nonpublic schools after a period of time will be lost, missing, obsolete or worn out. These items should be so noted on an annual inventory.

d. Each nonpublic school shall submit to the local intermediate unit an inventory of all instructional materials ... on loan on or before June 1 of each fiscal year. Each intermediate unit should submit to the Secretary of Education a composite inventory of all instructional materials ... on loan, on or before June 30 of each fiscal year.

To distinguish the primary effect of the instructional materials loan provisions from the textbook loan provisions we would be required to attach constitutional significance either to the difference between textbooks and such materials or to the fact that the schools rather than individual students became the bailees. As to the nature of the materials, there are no distinctions of constitutional significance between secular, neutral, nonideological textbooks, on the one hand, and secular, neutral, nonideological “books, periodicals, documents, pamphlets, photographs, reproductions, pictorial or graphic works, musical scores, maps, charts, globes, sound recordings, . . . processed slides, transparencies, films, filmstrips, kine-scopes, and videotapes” on the other. If the public authorities can be trusted with selecting secular, neutral, nonideological textbooks for use by students in religious schools, they can be trusted to make the same judgment with respect to those instructional materials which in this nonsequential age have to some extent replaced textbooks as teaching media. As with textbooks, this statute is, from the point of view of primary effect, largely self-enforcing since by hypothesis the instructional materials will be the same as are made available in the public schools.

Nor can we attach constitutional significance to the fact that the schools, rather than individual students, become the bailees of the materials. No evidence has been presented from which we may infer that secular, neutral, nonideological instructional materials such as audio-visual materials, intended for group rather than individual use, are any more susceptible of diversion to a religious purpose than are textbooks. The expenditure is for a clearly identifiable secular purpose. The school is the custodian out of practical necessity because such materials are designed for group or multi-student use. Tilton v. Richardson, supra, and Hunt v. McNair, supra, teach that the religious institution’s possession of the property granted under a school aid statute is not alone significant. No greater entanglement is required by the operation of the instructional materials loan program than by the textbook loan program. We find that the instructional materials loan provisions of Act 195 both facially and as thus far applied (1) do not have the primary effect of advancing religion and (2) do not involve the Commonwealth in an impermissible entanglement with religion.

4. The Instructional Equipment Loan Program

Loans of instructional equipment are authorized by the same subsection of Act 195 as authorizes loans of instructional materials. One obvious purpose of the equipment provision is to make useable that instructional material which for use requires equipment — slide projectors for slides, for example. But other equipment is authorized as well. As with textbooks and instructional materials, selection of the equipment is in the hands of Commonwealth authorities. Thus the equipment starts out quite clearly as secular in purpose. But while textbooks and instructional materials self-police, in that starting as secular, nonideological and neutral, they will not change in use, some equipment is not of the self-policing variety.

We can set to one side, and treat like instructional materials, equipment which from its nature is incapable of diversion to a religious purpose — laboratory equipment and gymnasium equipment, for example. Giving free rein to the imagination one could, perhaps, visualize a religious teacher storing holy water in a chemistry laboratory beaker, but as stated in Tilton v. Richardson, supra, 403 U.S. at 679, 91 S.Ct. at 2096:

A possibility always exists, of course, that the legitimate objectives of any law or legislative program may be subverted by conscious design or lax enforcement. . . . But judicial concern about these possibilities cannot, standing alone, warrant striking down a statute as unconstitutional.

Other equipment, however, like the buildings in Tilton v. Richardson, supra, and Hunt v. McNair, supra, is capable of diversion to sectarian purposes. A projector, for example, could be used to show a religious film. To the extent that Act 195 authorizes the loan of equipment capable of such diversion, a primary effect issue arises. We must look, then, at whether the Commonwealth has effectively restricted use of such equipment to secular purposes.

The guidelines of the Pennsylvania Department of Education (Exhibit P-1) provide:

3.14 Purchasing of Instructional Equipment

a. Each nonpublic school or the appropriate chief administrator shall submit a loan request on or before October 31 of the initial year and on or before March 15 thereafter for the desired instructional equipment not to exceed 80 per cent of the total allocation for “Instructional Materials” and “Instructional Equipment” to the designated intermediate unit in whose extended service area the nonpublic school is located.

b. The designated intermediate unit shall consolidate the loan requests and order the desired equipment in accordance with those sections of the Public School Code of Pennsylvania of 1949 as amended.

3.16 Inventory of Instructional Equipment

c. Instructional equipment loaned to nonpublic schools shall be maintained on an inventory by both nonpublic school and the appropriate intermediate unit. After a period of 10 years these items shall be declared unserviceable and the disposal of such shall be at the discretion of the Secretary of Education.

d. Each nonpublic school shall submit to the local intermediate unit an inventory of all instructional . . . equipment on loan on or before June 1 of each fiscal year. Each intermediate unit should submit to the Secretary of Education a composite inventory of all instructional . equipment on loan, on or before June 30 of each fiscal year.

In Tilton v. Richardson the statute, 20 U.S.C. § 751(a)(2), explicitly excluded a grant for any facility to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship. The statute here is not quite so explicit. It refers to the equipment as “secular, neutral, non-ideological” and “presently or hereafter provided for public school children of the Commonwealth.” But the Commonwealth defendants insist that properly construed and as construed by them, the statute means that “secular, neutral, non-ideological” applies not only to the nature of the equipment but also to its use. In Tilton v. Richardson the statute, 20 U.S.C. § 754(b)(2), provided that the United States could, if statutory restrictions as to use of the facility were violated “recover an amount equal to the proportion of the facility’s present value that the federal grant bore to the original cost.” 403 U.S. at 682, 91 S.Ct. at 2098. The statute here has no explicit provision for repossession of the loaned equipment, and no provision for recovery of its cost, if it is used for a religious purpose. Assuming, as the Commonwealth contends, that the statute properly construed permits recapture of the equipment if it is used for a religious purpose, a difficult surveillance problem remains as to which the Commonwealth has shown no simple solution. A slide or movie projector, television and broadcasting equipment, copying, printing and reproduction equipment may begin as neutral but can easily be adapted to a religious use. The key is predictability. Where, either from the statutory provisions or from the nature of the equipment, there is a means for the public officials to chart a lawful and administratively simple course, the loan may be constitutional. But where the equipment is not from its nature of the self-policing character, the Commonwealth may not, as the intervenors suggest, rely on the good faith of the bailees.

We find, then, that insofar as they permit the loan of instructional equipment which can be easily diverted to a religious use, the equipment loan provisions of Act 195, as applied, either have the primary effect of advancing religion or may involve the Commonwealth in an impermissible entanglement with religion. Insofar as the statute permits the loan of instructional equipment such as gymnasium equipment, laboratory equipment and the like which from its nature cannot be used for any but secular purposes, as applied Act 195 neither has the primary effect of advancing religion nor involves the Commonwealth in an impermissible entanglement with religion. The two categories of equipment are severable.

As a separate ground for their attack upon Acts 194 and 195 under the establishment clause the plaintiffs allege that each act “gives rise to and intensifies political fragmentation and divisiveness along religious lines.” Complaint, para. 11. The plaintiffs introduced no evidence in support of this allegation. The defendants introduced the deposition of Carmen Bruto, a legislative correspondent of long experience, which contains his expert opinion that appropriations to carry out Acts 194 and 195 will not significantly involve legislative discussion of religion. We have no occasion to rely on that opinion. If plaintiffs' allegation is treated as one of fact, we hold that it simply has not been proven. Undoubtedly, however, what plaintiffs have in mind is a rule of law that any statute providing aid to nonpublic school children and requiring annual appropriations will be presumed to be politically divisive along religious lines. The potential for divisiveness in statutes providing for aid to nonpublic school children was touched upon in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. at 622, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745, and in Committee for Public Education and Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. at 797-98, 93 S.Ct. at 2978 where the Court said:

[W]hile the prospect of such divisiveness may not alone warrant the invalidation of state laws that otherwise survive the careful scrutiny required by decisions of this Court, it is certainly a “warning signal” not to be ignored.

We have given the statutes the careful scrutiny which the standards announced in the opinions of the Supreme Court require, and they have survived. In making that scrutiny we were aware of the potential for political divisiveness along religious lines from a decision either way on their constitutionality. We are not ready to assume, as the plaintiffs are, that an important social issue will become less divisive because an article III court has spoken upon it. The lessons of history are clearly to the contrary. The Court’s pronouncement on school prayer, School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 (1963), for example, is still the subject of heated debate. See, e.g., N.Y. Times, Sept. 25, 1973, § 1, at 34, cols. 1-2. The divisiveness of the issues decided in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873 (1954), has continued unabated since the Court’s pronouncement. Those issues continued to boil and fester under Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 16 S.Ct. 1138, 41 L.Ed. 256 (1896), for fifty-eight years until the Court reversed that decision. The nature of the issues involved in the whole area of choice in education are so complex and controversial that no pronouncement by a court will make them somehow go away.

VII. THE FREE EXERCISE COUNT

We held in discussing standing that as this complaint is drafted only the individual plaintiffs have standing to assert an interference with the free exercise of their religion. Of these, only plaintiff Meek testified. It was stipulated that the testimony of Weatherley would be the same. Since the free exercise claim was put in issue by the defendants there is a failure of proof as to all plaintiffs other than Meek and Weatherley. As to them, we find from her testimony that their objection to the Commonwealth’s program is essentially political and social rather than religious, and that the impact of whatever miniscule burden of taxation which results to them from the expenditures in question has no effect upon the free exercise of their religion. See Tilton v. Richardson, supra, 403 U.S. at 689, 91 S.Ct. 2091; cf. Board of Education v. Allen, supra, 392 U.S. at 248-249, 88 S.Ct. 1923. Since we find that their objection to the programs is essentially political and social rather than religious there is no occasion to pass upon the issue whether a plaintiff has standing to challenge a governmental expenditure on free exercise rather than on establishment grounds. Compare Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, supra.

VIII. CONCLUSION

The plaintiffs’ application for a preliminary and a final injunction against the expenditure of Commonwealth funds pursuant to Act 194 will be denied. The plaintiffs’ application for a preliminary and final injunction against the expenditure of Commonwealth funds pursuant to Act 195 will be granted to the extent that the Commonwealth defendants will be enjoined from loaning instructional equipment which from its nature can be diverted to religious purposes. The parties shall meet with Judge Bechtle on Monday, February 25, 1974 at 9:30 A.M. in Room 2106, United States Courthouse, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for a conference at which he will receive suggestions as to the precise provisions of the injunction. If the parties are unable to agree on the form of an injunction, a hearing as to scope of relief will be held before this three-judge court on a prompt date to be fixed.

1 . The legislative findings are as follows:

The welfare of the Commonwealth requires that the present and future generations of school age children be assured ample opportunity to develop to the fullest their intellectual capacities. To further this objective, the Commonwealth provides, through tax funds of the Commonwealth, auxiliary services free of charge to children attending public schools within the Commonwealth. Approximately one quarter of all children in the Commonwealth, in compliance with the compulsory attendance provisions of this act, attend nonpublic schools. Although their parents are taxpayers 0 of the Commonwealth, these children do not receive auxiliary services from the Commonwealth. It is the intent of the General Assembly by this enactment to assure the providing of such auxiliary services in such a manner that every school child in the Commonwealth will equitably share in the benefits thereof. Act 194, § 1(a), Pa.Stat. tit. 24, § 9-972(a). The welfare of the Commonwealth requires that the present and future generations of school age children be assured ample opportunity to develop to the fullest their intellectual capacities. To further this objective, the .Commonwealth provides, through tax funds of the Commonwealth, textbooks and instructional materials free of charge to children attending public schools within the Commonwealth. Approximately one quarter of all children in the Commonwealth, in compliance with the compulsory attendance provisions of this act, attend nonpublic schools. Although their parents are taxpayers of the Commonwealth, these children do not receive textbooks or instructional materials from the Commonwealth. It is the intent of the General Assembly by this enactment to assure such a distribution of such educational aids that every school child in the Commonwealth will equitably share in the benefits thereof. Act 195, § 1(a), Pa. Stat. tit. 24, § 9-972(a).

2 . Neither Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, supra, Levitt v. Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty, supra, nor Sloan v. Lemon, supra, were decided on entanglement grounds. In Nyquist, however, the opinion of the Court, citing Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. at 625, 91 S.Ct. 2105, did refer to the need for recurring appropriations as a source of potential divisiveness and a possible warning signal. 413 U.S. at 796, 93 S.Ct. 2955. See discussion at pages 661-662, infra.

3 . Summary judgment was granted in favor of plaintiffs restraining payments under the Pennsylvania statute for services performed or costs incurred after the Supreme Court’s decision. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 348 F.Supp. 300, 301 n.l (E.D.Pa.1972) (3-judge court). Payments for predecision services and costs were permitted. Id., aff’d, 411 U. S. 192, 93 S.Ct. 1463, 36 L.Ed.2d 151 (1973).

Due to lack of comprehension

4 . Philadelphia is both a school district and an Intermediate Unit.

5 . The guidelines of the Pennsylvania Department of Education (Exhibit P-1) provide:

Inventory

4:10 “Textbooks” loaned to the nonpublic schools:

a. shall be maintained on an inventory by the nonpublic school,

b. and purchased by the Department of Education under Act 195 of 1972 shall be maintained on a statewide inventory by the Division of School Libraries.

4.11 It is presumed that textbooks on loan to nonpublic schools after a period of time will be lost, missing, obsolete or worn out. This information should be communicated to the Department of Education. After a period of six years, textbooks shall be declared unserviceable and the disposal of such shall be at the discretion of the Secretary of Education.