The Ohio Legislature adopts the Ohio Pilot Scholarship Program, a school voucher program. The program provides scholarships to children in grades K-12 with preference to children from low-income families. The program allows parents to pay reduced tuition to send their children to participating schools, which are private schools. The vast majority of the private schools are religious in nature. Currently, 56 private schools participate in the program. Forty-six of those are religious.

In January 1996, Doris Simmons-Harris, a parent of a public school student, and others challenge the program in state court on a variety of grounds. They argue that the voucher program violates both the state and federal constitutions.

Eventually, the case reaches the Ohio Supreme Court, which determines that the voucher program violates the state Constitution's "one-subject" rule. This provision prohibits the state from passing laws that deal with more than one general subject. (The state had passed the voucher bill as an addition to a state budget bill).

In June 1999, the Ohio Legislature re-enacts the voucher program as a free-standing legislative measure. On July 20, Simmons-Harris and others sue the state department of education in federal court. A group of other plaintiffs, including an organization called Citizens Against Vouchers, also challenge the state system in federal court. The lawsuits allege a violation of the Establishment Clause.

In response, a group of parents, led by Senel Taylor, intervene to defend the constitutionality of the voucher program. Several parochial schools, led by Hanna Perkins School, also intervene to defend the constitutionality of the program.

On Aug. 24, a federal district court grants the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction. Then, a few days later, the district court grants a limited stay of the injunction. The court's limited stay allows those children already enrolled to continue participating in the voucher program but discontinues further enrollment in the voucher program. The state appeals the partial granting of the preliminary injunction.

On Nov. 5, 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court grants a stay of the preliminary injunction, pending the resolution of the appeal. The case goes back to the district court for litigation on the Establishment Clause issue.

In December, the district court grants the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, finding that the voucher program violates the Establishment Clause. The district court's order enjoins state officials from administering the program. The plaintiffs consent to stay the district court order pending further appeal. The defendants appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

A divided three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit rules 2-1 against the voucher program. The majority determines that the program violates the Establishment Clause. The state appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agrees to hear the case.

The voucher program helps lower income children receive a better education without reference to religion. The program is neutral on its face and does not favor religious over nonreligious schools. "True private choice programs" do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. A government program does not violate the Establishment Clause if the government aid is provided directly to the individual student or parent, who then makes a choice of schools. "That the program was one of true private choice, with no evidence that the State deliberately skewed incentives toward religious schools, was sufficient for the program to survive scrutiny under the Establishment Clause."

"That the program was one of true private choice, with no evidence that the State deliberately skewed incentives toward religious schools, was sufficient for the program to survive scrutiny under the Establishment Clause." (Rehnquist)

"For nonreligious schools to qualify as genuine options for parents, they need not be superior to religious schools in every respect. They need only be adequate substitutes for religious schools in the eyes of parents. (O'Connor)

"There would be tragic irony in converting the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of individual liberty into a prohibition on the exercise of educational choice." (Thomas)

"If society cannot end racial discrimination, at least it can arm minorities with the education to defend themselves from some of discrimination's effects." (Thomas)

"Whenever we remove a brick from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government, we increase the risk of religious strife and weaken the foundation of our democracy." (Stevens)

"If there were an excuse for giving short shrift to the Establishment Clause, it would probably apply here. But there is no excuse. Constitutional limitations are placed on government to preserve constitutional values in hard cases, like these." (Souter)

"The upshot is the development of constitutional doctrine that reads the Establishment Clause as avoiding religious strife, not by providing every religion with an equal opportunity (say, to secure state funding or to pray in the public schools), but by drawing fairly clear lines of separation between church and state - at least where the heartland of religious belief, such as primary religious education, is at issue." (Breyer)

U.S. Supreme Court opinion

Sixth Circuit opinion

All eyes on O'Connor during voucher arguments (Tony Mauro analysis)

High court's pending vote on vouchers won't be end of the story (Charles Haynes column)

School voucher case offers test of church-state separation

Supreme Court to tackle school vouchers