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Religion
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Decided: 1971
In brief
Created the 'Lemon test' for evaluating Establishment Clause violations, long the dominant framework.
The Court's ruling in depth
The Court struck down state aid to nonpublic (largely Catholic) schools and articulated the three-prong 'Lemon test': a law must have a secular purpose, must have a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, and must not foster excessive government entanglement with religion. Lemon dominated Establishment Clause analysis for fifty years before being effectively displaced by Kennedy v. Bremerton (2022) in favor of a historical-practices approach.