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P['CP0"3L?P=e xzCX&[G' ԦGG P['C^Pu>|Ru]SY6W5+|R]]|GYBY1YQu_&Q:|RuiIÐt iID YH_2|R t8:Rt CiIH*ÐKt iID9X_2|RK~Opin InitInitial Opinion codesdpЊ #  ( (    П I. A. 1. a.(1)(a) i) a) I A 1 a (1)(a) i) a)@@BQck QuoteSingle spaced indented quote - Circv C   (  Cd  ( ( ( 2ZovQHR-UZFTNFormats for each footnote,  X` hp x (#%'0*,.8135@8:  In Ball, the Court evaluated two programs implemented by the School District of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The district's Shared Time program, the one most analogous to Title I, provided remedial and enrichment classes, at public expense, to students attending nonpublic schools. The classes were taught during regular school hours by publicly employed teachers, using materials purchased with public funds, on the premises of nonpublic schools. The Shared Time courses were in subjects designed to supplement the core  J curriculum of the nonpublic schools. Id., at 375!376. Of the 41 nonpublic schools eligible for the program, 40 were  g  `pervasively sectarian'   in character"that is, the purpos[e] of [those] schools [was] to advance their  J particular religions. Id., at 379.  The Court conducted its analysis by applying the  J threepart test set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971): BQ nC  , , (  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. 473 U.S.  J 382!383 (quoting Lemon, supra, at 612!613) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted)..lBQ `d   ( , , The Court acknowledged that the Shared Time program served a purely secular purpose, thereby satisfying the  JL first part of the socalled Lemon test. 473 U.S., at 383. Nevertheless, it ultimately concluded that the program  J had the impermissible effect of advancing religion. Id., at 385.  The Court found that the program violated the Establishment Clause's prohibition against governmentfinanced or governmentsponsored indoctrination into the beliefs of a particular religious faith in at least three  J ways. Ibid. First, drawing upon the analysis in Meek  J v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349 (1975), the Court observed that the teachers participating in the programs may become involved in intentionally or inadvertently inculcating particular religious tenets or beliefs. 473  JD U.S., at 385. Meek invalidated a Pennsylvania program in which fulltime public employees provided supplemental auxiliary services"remedial and accelerated instruction, guidance counseling and testing, and speech and hearing services"to nonpublic school children at their schools. 473 U.S., at 367!373. Although the auxiliary services themselves were secular, they were mostly dispensed on the premises of parochial schools, where an atmosphere dedicated to the advancement of  J religious belief [was] constantly maintained. Meek, 421 U.S., at 371. Instruction in that atmosphere was sufficient to create [t]he potential for impermissible  Jd fostering of religion. Id., at 372. Cf. Wolman v.  J< Walter, 433 U.S., at 248 (upholding programs employing public employees to provide remedial instruction and guidance counseling to nonpublic school children at sites away from the nonpublic school). "  Ԍ The Court concluded that Grand Rapids' program  J shared these defects. 473 U.S., at 386. As in Meek, classes were conducted on the premises of religious schools. Accordingly, a majority found a   `substantial risk'    that teachers"even those who were not employed by the private schools"might subtly (or overtly) conform their instruction to the [pervasively sectarian] environment in which they [taught]. 473 U.S., at 388. The danger of statesponsored indoctrination was only exacerbated by the school district's failure to monitor the  Jp courses for religious content. Id., at 387. Notably, the Court disregarded the lack of evidence of any specific incidents of religious indoctrination as largely irrelevant, reasoning that potential witnesses to any indoctrination"the parochial school students, their parents, or parochial school officials"might be unable to detect or  J have little incentive to report the incidents. Id., at 388!389.  The presence of public teachers on parochial school grounds had a second, related impermissible effect: It created a graphic symbol of the `concert or union or  J dependency' of church and state, id., at 391 (quoting  J Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306, 312 (1952)), especially when perceived by children in their formative years, 473 U.S., at 390. The Court feared that this perception of a symbolic union between church and state would conve[y] a message of government endorsement ... of religion and thereby violate a core purpose of the  J Establishment Clause. Id., at 389.  Third, the Court found that the Shared Time program impermissibly financed religious indoctrination by subsidizing the primary religious mission of the institu J tions affected. Id., at 385. The Court separated its prior decisions evaluating programs that aided the secular activities of religious institutions into two categories: those in which it concluded that the aid resulted in an effect that was indirect, remote, or` "   incidental (and upheld the aid); and those in which it concluded that the aid resulted in a direct and substantial advancement of the sectarian enterprise (and  J invalidated the aid). Id., at 393 (internal quotation  J` marks omitted). In light of Meek and Wolman, Grand Rapids' program fell into the latter category. In those cases, the Court ruled that a state loan of instructional equipment and materials to parochial schools was an impermissible form of direct aid because it advanced the primary, religionoriented educational function of the  Jp sectarian school, id., at 395 (citations and quotation  JH marks omitted), by providing inkind aid (e.g., instructional materials) that could be used to teach religion and by freeing up money for religious indoctrination that the school would otherwise have devoted to secular educa J tion. Given the holdings in Meek and Wolman, the Shared Time program"which provided teachers as well as instructional equipment and materials"was surely  J0 invalid. Id., at 395. The Ball Court likewise placed no weight on the fact that the program was provided to the student rather than to the school. Nor was the impermissible effect mitigated by the fact that the program only supplemented the courses offered by the parochial  Jh schools. Id., at 395!397.  The New York City Title I program challenged in  J Aguilar closely resembled the Shared Time program  J struck down in Ball, but the Court found fault with an  J aspect of the Title I program not present in Ball: The Board had adopted a system for monitoring the religious content of publicly funded Title I classes in the religious schools. 473 U.S., at 409. Even though this monitoring system might prevent the Title I program from being used to inculcate religion, the Court con J cluded, as it had in Lemon and Meek, that the level of monitoring necessary to be certain that the program had an exclusively secular effect would inevitably resul[t] in the excessive entanglement of church and`"    J state, thereby running afoul of Lemon's third prong.  J 473 U.S., at 409; see Lemon, 403 U.S., at 619 (invalidating Rhode Island program on entanglement grounds because [a] comprehensive, discriminating, and continuing state surveillance will inevitably be required to ensure that th[e] restrictions [against indoctrination] are  J obeyed); Meek, 421 U.S., at 370 (invalidating Pennsylvania program on entanglement grounds because excessive monitoring would be required for the State to be certain that public school officials do not inculcate religion). In the majority's view, New York City's Title I program suffered from the same critical elements of  J entanglement present in Lemon and Meek: the aid was provided in a pervasively sectarian environment ... in the form of teachers, requiring ongoing inspection ...  J to ensure the absence of a religious message. 473 U.S., at 412. Such pervasive monitoring by public authorities in the sectarian schools infringes precisely those Establishment Clause values at the root of the  J prohibition of excessive entanglement. Id., at 413. The Court noted two further forms of entanglement inherent in New York City's Title I program: the administrative cooperation required to implement Title I services and the dangers of political divisiveness that might grow out of the daytoday decisions public officials would  J have to make in order to provide Title I services. Id., at 413!414.  Distilled to essentials, the Court's conclusion that the  J Shared Time program in Ball had the impermissible effect of advancing religion rested on three assumptions: (i) any public employee who works on the premises of a religious school is presumed to inculcate religion in her work; (ii) the presence of public employees on private school premises creates a symbolic union between church and state; and (iii) any and all public aid that directly aids the educational function of religious schools impermissibly finances religious indoctrination, even if`"   the aid reaches such schools as a consequence of private  J decisionmaking. Additionally, in Aguilar there was a fourth assumption: that New York City's Title I program necessitated an excessive government entanglement with religion because public employees who teach on the premises of religious schools must be closely monitored to ensure that they do not inculcate religion.  ;H2 d d8B؃  $2  Our more recent cases have undermined the assump J. tions upon which Ball and Aguilar relied. To be sure, the general principles we use to evaluate whether government aid violates the Establishment Clause have  J not changed since Aguilar was decided. For example, we continue to ask whether the government acted with the purpose of advancing or inhibiting religion, and the nature of that inquiry has remained largely unchanged.  J See Witters, 474 U.S., at 485!486; Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 602!604 (1988) (concluding that Adoles J cent Family Life Act had a secular purpose); Board of  J Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v.  Jv ԚMergens, 496 U.S. 226, 248!249 (1990) (concluding that  JN Equal Access Act has a secular purpose); cf. Edwards v.  J& Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987) (striking down Louisiana law that required creationism to be discussed with evolution in public schools because the law lacked a legitimate secular purpose). Likewise, we continue to explore whether the aid has the effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. What has changed since we decided  J6 Ball and Aguilar is our understanding of the criteria used to assess whether aid to religion has an impermissible effect.  =H3 d d81؃  2  As we have repeatedly recognized, government inculcation of religious beliefs has the impermissible effect of  J advancing religion. Our cases subsequent to Aguilar have, however, modified in two significant respects the"   approach we use to assess indoctrination. First, we  J have abandoned the presumption erected in Meek and  J Ball that the placement of public employees on parochial school grounds inevitably results in the impermissible effect of statesponsored indoctrination or constitutes a symbolic union between government and religion. In  J Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School Dist., 509 U.S. 1 (1993), we examined whether the IDEA, 20 U.S.C.  J 1400 et seq., was constitutional as applied to a deaf student who sought to bring his stateemployed sign language interpreter with him to his Roman Catholic high  school. We held that this was permissible, expressly disavowing the notion that the Establishment Clause [laid] down [an] absolute bar to the placing of a public employee in a sectarian school. 509 U.S., at 13. Such a flat rule, smacking of antiquated notions of  J `taint,' would indeed exalt form over substance. Ibid. We refused to presume that a publicly employed interpreter would be pressured by the pervasively sectarian surroundings to inculcate religion by add[ing] to [or]  J subtract[ing] from the lectures translated. Ibid. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we assumed instead that the interpreter would dutifully discharge her responsibilities as a fulltime public employee and comply with the ethical guidelines of her profession by  J accurately translating what was said. Id., at 12.  J Because the only government aid in Zobrest was the interpreter, who was herself not inculcating any religious  J messages, no government indoctrination took place and we were able to conclude that the provision of such assistance [was] not barred by the Establishment  J( Clause. Ibid. Zobrest therefore expressly rejected the  J notion"relied on in Ball and Aguilar"that, solely because of her presence on private school property, a public employee will be presumed to inculcate religion in  J the students. Zobrest also implicitly repudiated another  J` assumption on which Ball and Aguilar turned: that the`"   presence of a public employee on private school property creates an impermissible symbolic link between government and religion.  J  Justice Souter contends that Zobrest did not under J` mine the presumption of inculcation erected in Ball  J8 and Aguilar, and that our conclusion to the contrary  J rests on a mistaken reading of Zobrest. Post, at 9. In  J his view, Zobrest held that the Establishment Clause tolerates the presence of public employees in sectarian  J schools only in ... limited circumstances"i.e., when the employee simply translates for one student the material presented to the class for the benefit of all  J students. Post, at 10. The signlanguage interpreter in  J Zobrest is unlike the remedial instructors in Ball and  J Aguilar because signing, Justice Souter explains, [cannot] be understood as an opportunity to inject religious content in what [is] supposed to be secular  JX instruction.  Ibid. He is thus able to conclude that  J0 Zobrest is distinguishable from"and therefore perfectly  J consistent with"Ball and Aguilar.  J  In Zobrest, however, we did not expressly or implicitly  J rely upon the basis Justice Souter now advances for  J distinguishing Ball and Aguilar. If we had thought that signers had no opportunity to inject religious content into their translations, we would have had no reason to consult the record for evidence of inaccurate translations.  J 509 U.S., at 13. The signer in Zobrest had the same opportunity to inculcate religion in the performance of her duties as do Title I employees, and there is no  Jx genuine basis upon which to confine Zobrest's underlying rationale"that public employees will not be presumed to inculcate religion"to signlanguage interpreters. Indeed,  J even the Zobrest dissenters acknowledged the shift  J Zobrest effected in our Establishment Clause law when they criticized the majority for stray[ing] ... from the course set by nearly five decades of Establishment Clause jurisprudence. 509 U.S., at 24 (Blackmun, J.,`"    J dissenting). Thus, it was Zobrest"and not this  J Ԛcase"that created fresh law. Post, at 11. Our refusal  J to limit Zobrest to its facts despite its rationale does not, in our view, amount to a misreading of precedent.  , ,  Second, we have departed from the rule relied on in  J8 Ball that all government aid that directly aids the educational function of religious schools is invalid. In  J Witters v. Washington Dept. of Servs. for Blind, 474 U.S. 481 (1986), we held that the Establishment Clause did not bar a State from issuing a vocational tuition grant to a blind person who wished to use the grant to attend a Christian college and become a pastor, missionary, or youth director. Even though the grant recipient clearly would use the money to obtain religious education, we observed that the tuition grants were  ! `made available generally without regard to the sectariannonsectarian, or publicnonpublic nature of the institu JX tion benefited.' R!  Id., at 487 (quoting Committee for  J0 Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 782!783, n. 38 (1973)). The grants were disbursed directly to students, who then used the money to pay for tuition at the educational institution of their choice. In our view, this transaction was no different from a State's issuing a paycheck to one of its employees, knowing that the employee would donate part or all of the check to a religious institution. In both situations, any money that ultimately went to religious institutions did so only as a result of the genuinely independent  J and private choices of individuals. Ibid. The same  Jx logic applied in Zobrest, where we allowed the State to provide an interpreter, even though she would be a mouthpiece for religious instruction, because the IDEA's neutral eligibility criteria ensured that the interpreter's presence in a sectarian school was a result of the  J private decision of individual parents and  [could] not  J be attributed to state decisionmaking. 509 U.S., at 10 (emphasis added). Because the private school would not`"   have provided an interpreter on its own, we also  J concluded that the aid in Zobrest did not indirectly finance religious education by reliev[ing] the sectarian schoo[l] of costs [it] otherwise would have borne in  J` educating [its] students. Id., at 12.  J8  Zobrest and Witters make clear that, under current  J law, the Shared Time program in Ball and New York  J City's Title I program in Aguilar will not, as a matter of law, be deemed to have the effect of advancing religion through indoctrination. Indeed, each of the  Jp premises upon which we relied in Ball to reach a contrary conclusion is no longer valid. First, there is no reason to presume that, simply because she enters a parochial school classroom, a fulltime public employee such as a Title I teacher will depart from her assigned duties and instructions and embark on religious indoctri J nation, any more than there was a reason in Zobrest to think an interpreter would inculcate religion by altering her translation of classroom lectures. Certainly, no evidence has ever shown that any New York City Title I instructor teaching on parochial school premises  J attempted to inculcate religion in students. National  J Coalition for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Harris,  Jh 489 F.Supp. 1248, 1262, 1267 (SDNY 1980); Felton v.  J@ Secretary, United States Dept. of Ed., 739 F.2d, at 53,  J aff'd sub nom. Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U.S. 402 (1985). Thus, both our precedent and our experience require us to reject respondents' remarkable argument that we must presume Title I instructors to be uncontrollable and sometimes very unprofessional. Tr. of Oral Arg. 39.  J(  As discussed above, Zobrest also repudiates Ball's assumption that the presence of Title I teachers in parochial school classrooms will, without more, create the impression of a symbolic union between church and  J state. Justice Souter maintains that Zobrest is not  J` dispositive on this point because Aguilar's implicit`"   conclusion that New York City's Title I program created a symbolic union rested on more than the presence of  J Title I employees on parochial school grounds. Post, at 11. To him, Title I continues to foster a symbolic union between the Board and sectarian schools because it mandates the involvement of public teachers in the  J instruction provided within sectarian schools, ibid., and  J  fus[es] public and private faculties, post, at 15.  J Justice Souter does not disavow the notion, uniformly adopted by lower courts, that Title I services may be provided to sectarian school students in offcampus  JH locations, post, at 8!9, even though that notion necessarily presupposes that the danger of symbolic union evaporates once the services are provided offcampus. Taking this view, the only difference between a constitutional program and an unconstitutional one is the location of the classroom, since the degree of cooperation between Title I instructors and parochial school faculty is the same no matter where the services are provided. We do not see any perceptible (let alone dispositive) difference in the degree of symbolic union between a student receiving remedial instruction in a classroom on his sectarian school's campus and one receiving instruction in a van parked just at the school's curbside. To draw this line based solely on the location of the public  J employee is neither sensible nor sound, post, at 9,  J and the Court in Zobrest rejected it.  Nor under current law can we conclude that a program placing fulltime public employees on parochial campuses to provide Title I instruction would impermissibly finance religious indoctrination. In all relevant respects, the provision of instructional services under Title I is indistinguishable from the provision of signlanguage interpreters under the IDEA. Both programs make aid available only to eligible recipients. That aid is provided to students at whatever school they choose to attend. Although Title I instruction is provided to`"   several students at once, whereas an interpreter provides translation to a single student, this distinction is  J not constitutionally significant. Moreover, as in Zobrest, Title I services are by law supplemental to the regular curricula. 34 CFR 200.12(a) (1996). These services do not, therefore, reliev[e] sectarian schools of costs they otherwise would have borne in educating their students.  J Zobrest, 509 U.S., at 12.  J  Justice Souter finds our conclusion that the IDEA and Title I programs are similar to be puzzling, and points to three differences he perceives between the programs: (i) Title I services are distributed by LEA's directly to the religious schools instead of to individual students pursuant to a formal application process; (ii) Title I services necessarily reliev[e] a religious school of `an expense that it otherwise would have assumed' ! ; and (iii) Title I provides services to more students than did  JX the programs in Witters and Zobrest. Post, at 13!14. None of these distinctions is meaningful. While it is true that individual students may not directly apply for Title I services, it does not follow from this premise that those services are distributed directly to the religious  J schools, post, at 14. In fact, they are not. No Title I funds ever reach the coffers of religious schools, compare  J@ Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Regan, 444 U.S. 646, 657!659 (1979) (involving a program  J giving direct cash reimbursement to religious schools for performing certain statemandated tasks), and Title I services may not be provided to religious schools on a schoolwide basis, 34 CFR 200.12(b) (1996). Title I  JP funds are instead distributed to a public agency (an LEA) that dispenses services directly to the eligible students within its boundaries, no matter where they choose to attend school. 20 U.S.C. 6311, 6312. Moreover, we fail to see how providing Title I services directly to eligible students results in a greater financing of religious indoctrination simply because those students `"   are not first required to submit a formal application.  We are also not persuaded that Title I services supplant the remedial instruction and guidance counseling already provided in New York City's sectarian  J` schools. Although Justice Souter maintains that the sectarian schools provide such services and that those schools reduce those services once their students begin  J to receive Title I instruction, see post, at 6, 7, 13, 15!16, his claims rest on speculation about the impossibility of drawing any line between supplemental and general  Jp education, see post, at 7, and not on any evidence in the record that the Board is in fact violating Title I regulations by providing services that supplant those offered in the sectarian schools. See 34 CFR 200.12(a) (1996). We are unwilling to speculate that all sectarian schools provide remedial instruction and guidance counseling to their students, and are unwilling to presume that the Board would violate Title I regulations by continuing to provide Title I services to students who attend a sectarian school that has curtailed its remedial instruction program in response to Title I. Nor are we willing to conclude that the constitutionality of an aid program depends on the number of sectarian school students who  Jh happen to receive the otherwise neutral aid. Zobrest did not turn on the fact that James Zobrest had, at the time of litigation, been the only child using a publicly funded signlanguage interpreter to attend a parochial school.  J Accord, Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 401 (1983) ( We would be loath to adopt a rule grounding the constitutionality of a facially neutral law on annual reports reciting the extent to which various classes of private citizens claimed benefits under the law).  What is most fatal to the argument that New York City's Title I program directly subsidizes religion is that it applies with equal force when those services are  J provided offcampus, and Aguilar implied that providing the services offcampus is entirely consistent with the`"    J Establishment Clause. Justice Souter resists the impulse to upset this implication, contending that it can be justified on the ground that Title I services are less likely to supplant some of what would otherwise go on inside [the sectarian schools] and to subsidize what remains when those services are offered offcampus.  J Post, at 8. But Justice Souter does not explain why a sectarian school would not have the same incentive to make patently significant cutbacks in its curriculum no matter where Title I services are offered, since the school would ostensibly be excused from having to provide the Title Itype services itself. Because the incentive is the same either way, we find no logical basis upon which to conclude that Title I services are an impermissible subsidy of religion when offered oncampus, but not when offered offcampus. Accordingly,  J contrary to our conclusion in Aguilar, placing fulltime employees on parochial school campuses does not as a matter of law have the impermissible effect of advancing religion through indoctrination.  =H3 d d82؃  J  2  Although we examined in Witters and Zobrest the criteria by which an aid program identifies its beneficiaries, we did so solely to assess whether any use of that aid to indoctrinate religion could be attributed to the State. A number of our Establishment Clause cases have found that the criteria used for identifying beneficiaries are relevant in a second respect, apart from enabling a court to evaluate whether the program subsidizes religion. Specifically, the criteria might themselves have the effect of advancing religion by creating a financial incentive to undertake religious indoctrina J tion. Cf. Witters, supra, at 488 (upholding neutrally  Jn available program because it did not  create a financial incentive for students to undertake sectarian education);  J Zobrest, supra, at 10 (upholding neutrally available"   IDEA aid because it creates no financial incentive for  J parents to choose a sectarian school); accord, post, at 15  J (Souter, J., dissenting) ( [E]venhandedness is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for an aid program to satisfy constitutional scrutiny). This incentive is not present, however, where the aid is allocated on the basis of neutral, secular criteria that neither favor nor disfavor religion, and is made available to both religious and secular beneficiaries on a nondiscriminatory basis. Under such circumstances, the aid is less likely to have  Jp the effect of advancing religion. See Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 274 (1981) ( The provision of benefits to so broad a spectrum of groups is an important index of secular effect).  J  In Ball and Aguilar, the Court gave this consideration no weight. Before and since those decisions, we have  J sustained programs that provided aid to all eligible children regardless of where they attended school. See,  J0 e.g., Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 16!18 (1947) (sustaining local ordinance authorizing all parents to deduct from their state tax returns the costs of transporting their children to school on public buses);  J Board of Ed. of Central School Dist. No. 1 v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 243!244 (1968) (sustaining New York law  J@ loaning secular textbooks to all children); Mueller v.  J Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 398!399 (1983) (sustaining Minnesota statute allowing all parents to deduct actual costs of tuition, textbooks, and transportation from state tax  J returns); Witters, 474 U.S., at 487!488 (sustaining Washington law granting all eligible blind persons  JP vocational assistance); Zobrest, 509 U.S., at 10 (sustaining section of IDEA providing all disabled children with necessary aid).  Applying this reasoning to New York City's Title I program, it is clear that Title I services are allocated on the basis of criteria that neither favor nor disfavor  J` religion. 34 CFR 200.10(b) (1996); see supra, at 2. `"   The services are available to all children who meet the Act's eligibility requirements, no matter what their religious beliefs or where they go to school, 20 U.S.C. 6312(c)(1)(F). The Board's program does not, therefore, give aid recipients any incentive to modify their religious beliefs or practices in order to obtain those services.  =H3 d d83؃  JL  L2  We turn now to Aguilar's conclusion that New York City's Title I program resulted in an excessive entanglement between church and state. Whether a government aid program results in such an entanglement has consistently been an aspect of our Establishment Clause analysis. We have considered entanglement both in the course of assessing whether an aid program has an  Jf impermissible effect of advancing religion, Walz v. Tax  J> Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 674 (1970),  J and as a factor separate and apart from effect, Lemon  J v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S., at 612!613. Regardless of how we have characterized the issue, however, the factors we use to assess whether an entanglement is excessive are similar to the factors we use to examine effect. That is, to assess entanglement, we have looked to the character and purposes of the institutions that are benefited, the nature of the aid that the State provides, and the resulting relationship between the government  J and religious authority. Id., at 615. Similarly, we have assessed a law's effect by examining the character  J^ of the institutions benefited (e.g., whether the religious  J6 institutions were predominantly religious), see Meek,  J 421 U.S., at 363!364; cf. Hunt v. McNair, 413 U.S. 734, 743!744 (1973), and the nature of the aid that the  J State provided (e.g., whether it was neutral and nonideo J logical), see Everson, 330 U.S., at 18; Wolman, 433  Jn U.S., at 244. Indeed, in Lemon itself, the entanglement that the Court found independently to necessitate the program's invalidation also was found to have the effect"    J of inhibiting religion. See, e.g., 403 U.S., at 620 ( [W]e cannot ignore here the danger that pervasive modern governmental power will ultimately intrude on religion ...). Thus, it is simplest to recognize why entangle J` ment is significant and treat it"as we did in Walz"as an aspect of the inquiry into a statute's effect.  Not all entanglements, of course, have the effect of advancing or inhibiting religion. Interaction between  J church and state is inevitable, see id., at 614, and we have always tolerated some level of involvement between the two. Entanglement must be excessive before it  JH runs afoul of the Establishment Clause. See, e.g.,  J Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S., at 615!617 (no excessive entanglement where government reviews the adolescent counseling program set up by the religious institutions that are grantees, reviews the materials used by such grantees, and monitors the program by periodic visits);  JX Roemer v. Board of Public Works of Md., 426 U.S. 736, 764!765 (1976) (no excessive entanglement where state conducts annual audits to ensure that categorical state grants to religious colleges are not used to teach religion).  J  The preAguilar Title I program does not result in an excessive entanglement that advances or inhibits religion. As discussed previously, the Court's finding of  J  excessive entanglement in Aguilar rested on three grounds: (i) the program would require pervasive monitoring by public authorities to ensure that Title I employees did not inculcate religion; (ii) the program required administrative cooperation between the Board and parochial schools; and (iii) the program might increase the dangers of political divisiveness. 473 U.S., at 413!414. Under our current understanding of the Establishment Clause, the last two considerations are insufficient by themselves to create an excessive entanglement. They are present no matter where Title I services are offered, and no court has held that Title`"    J I services cannot be offered offcampus. Aguilar, supra  J (limiting holding to onpremises services); Walker v. San  J Francisco Unified School Dist., 46 F. 3d 1449 (CA9 1995)  J (same); Pulido v. Cavazos, 934 F.2d 912, 919!920 (CA8  J` 1991); Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v.  J8 Secretary, United States Dept. of Ed., 942 F.Supp. 842 (EDNY 1996) (same). Further, the assumption underlying the first consideration has been undermined. In  J Aguilar, the Court presumed that fulltime public employees on parochial school grounds would be tempted to inculcate religion, despite the ethical standards they  JH were required to uphold. Because of this risk pervasive  J monitoring would be required. But after Zobrest we no longer presume that public employees will inculcate religion simply because they happen to be in a sectarian environment. Since we have abandoned the assumption that properly instructed public employees will fail to discharge their duties faithfully, we must also discard  J0 the assumption that pervasive monitoring of Title I teachers is required. There is no suggestion in the record before us that unannounced monthly visits of public supervisors are insufficient to prevent or to detect inculcation of religion by public employees. Moreover, we have not found excessive entanglement in cases in which States imposed far more onerous burdens on religious institutions than the monitoring system at  J issue here. See Bowen, supra, at 615!617.  To summarize, New York City's Title I program does not run afoul of any of three primary criteria we currently use to evaluate whether government aid has the effect of advancing religion: it does not result in governmental indoctrination; define its recipients by reference to religion; or create an excessive entanglement. We therefore hold that a federally funded program providing supplemental, remedial instruction to disadvantaged children on a neutral basis is not invalid under the Establishment Clause when such instruction`"   is given on the premises of sectarian schools by government employees pursuant to a program containing safeguards such as those present here. The same considerations that justify this holding require us to conclude that this carefully constrained program also cannot reasonably be viewed as an endorsement of  J religion. Accord, Witters, 474 U.S., at 488!489 ( [T]he mere circumstance that [an aid recipient] has chosen to use neutrally available state aid to help pay for [a] religious education [does not] confer any message of  Jp state endorsement of religion); Bowen, supra, at 613!614 (finding no   `symbolic link'   when Congress made federal funds neutrally available for adolescent counseling). Accordingly, we must acknowledge that  J Aguilar, as well as the portion of Ball addressing Grand Rapids' Shared Time program, are no longer good law.  ;H2 d d8C؃  J  2  The doctrine of stare decisis does not preclude us from recognizing the change in our law and overruling  J Aguilar and those portions of Ball inconsistent with our  Jv more recent decisions. As we have often noted, [s]tare  JN decisis is not an inexorable command, Payne v. Tennes J& see, 501 U.S. 808, 828 (1991), but instead reflects a policy judgment that in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than  J that it be settled right, Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas  J Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). That policy is at its weakest when we interpret the Constitution because our interpretation can be altered only by constitutional amendment or by overruling our  J prior decisions. Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517  J U.S. ___, ___ (1996) (slip op., at 20!21); Payne, supra,  J at 828; St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U.S. 38, 94 (1936) (Stone and Cardozo, JJ., concurring  JF in result) ( The doctrine of stare decisis ... has only a limited application in the field of constitutional law). "    J Thus, we have held in several cases that stare decisis does not prevent us from overruling a previous decision where there has been a significant change in or subse J quent development of our constitutional law. United  J` States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, ___ (1995) (slip op., at  J8 15) (stare decisis may yield where a prior decision's underpinnings [have been] eroded, by subsequent  J decisions of this Court); Alabama v. Smith, 490 U.S. 794, 803 (1989) (noting that a later development of ... constitutional law is a basis for overruling a decision);  Jp Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 857 (1992) (observing that a decision is properly overruled where development of constitutional law since the case was decided has implicitly or explicitly left [it] behind as a mere survivor of obsolete constitutional thinking). As discussed above, our Establishment Clause jurisprudence has changed sig JX nificantly since we decided Ball and Aguilar, so our decision to overturn those cases rests on far more than a present doctrinal disposition to come out differently  J from the Court of [1985]. Casey, supra, at 864. We  J therefore overrule Ball and Aguilar to the extent those decisions are inconsistent with our current understanding of the Establishment Clause.  Nor does the law of the case doctrine place any  J additional constraints on our ability to overturn Aguilar. Under this doctrine, a court should not reopen issues  J decided in earlier stages of the same litigation. Messen J ger v. Anderson, 225 U.S. 436, 444 (1912). The doctrine does not apply if the court is convinced that [its prior decision] is clearly erroneous and would work a  J( manifest injustice. Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618, n. 8 (1983). In light of our conclusion that  J Aguilar would be decided differently under our current Establishment Clause law, we think adherence to that decision would undoubtedly work a manifest injustice, such that the law of the case doctrine does not apply. `"    J Accord, Davis v. United States, 417 U.S. 333, 342 (1974) (Court of Appeals erred in adhering to law of the case doctrine despite intervening Supreme Court precedent).  9H1 d d7IV؃  2  We therefore conclude that our Establishment Clause law has significant[ly] change[d] since we decided  J Aguilar. See Rufo, 502 U.S., at 384. We are only left to decide whether this change in law entitles petitioners to relief under Rule 60(b)(5). We conclude that it does. Our general practice is to apply the rule of law we  J announce in a case to the parties before us. Rodriguez  J de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 485 (1989) ( The general rule of long standing is that the law announced in the Court's decision controls  Jf the case at bar). We adhere to this practice even when  J> we overrule a case. In Adarand Constructors, Inc. v.  J Pe9a, 515 U.S. 200 (1995), for example, the District Court and Court of Appeals rejected the argument that racial classifications in federal programs should be evaluated under strict scrutiny, relying upon our  Jv decision in Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547 (1990). When we granted certiorari and overruled  J& Metro Broadcasting, we did not hesitate to vacate the judgments of the lower courts. In doing so, we necessarily concluded that those courts relied on a legal principle that had not withstood the test of time. 515 U.S., at  J 237!238. See also Hubbard v. United States, 514 U.S. 695, 715 (1995) (overruling decision relied upon by Court of Appeals and reversing the lower court's judgment that relied upon the overruled case).  We do not acknowledge, and we do not hold, that other courts should conclude our more recent cases have, by implication, overruled an earlier precedent. We reaffirm that if a precedent of this Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of"   Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving to this Court the prerogative of overruling its  J own decisions. Rodriguez de Quijas, 490 U.S., at 484. Adherence to this teaching by the District Court and Court of Appeals in this case does not insulate a legal principle on which they relied from our review to determine its continued vitality. The trial court acted within its discretion in entertaining the motion with supporting allegations, but it was also correct to recognize that the motion had to be denied unless and until this Court reinterpreted the binding precedent.  JH  Respondents and Justice Ginsburg urge us to adopt a different analysis because we are reviewing the District Court's denial of petitioners' Rule 60(b)(5)  J motion for an abuse of discretion. See Browder v.  J Director, Dept. of Corrections of Ill., 434 U.S. 257, 263, n. 7 (1978). It is true that the trial court has discretion, but the exercise of discretion cannot be permitted to stand if we find it rests upon a legal principle that  J can no longer be sustained. See Cooter & Gell v.  J Hartmarx Corp., 496 U.S. 385, 405 (1990). The standard of review we employ in this litigation does not therefore require us to depart from our general practice.  Jh See Adarand, supra; Hubbard, supra.  Respondents nevertheless contend that we should not grant Rule 60(b)(5) relief here, in spite of its propriety in other contexts. They contend that petitioners have used Rule 60(b)(5) in an unprecedented way"not as a  J means of recognizing changes in the law, but as a  Jx vehicle for effecting them. If we were to sanction this use of Rule 60(b)(5), respondents argue, we would encourage litigants to burden the federal courts with a deluge of Rule 60(b)(5) motions premised on nothing more than the claim that various judges or Justices have  J stated that the law has changed. See also post, at 7  J (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (contending that granting Rule 60(b)(5) relief in this case will encourage invitations to` "   reconsider old cases based on `speculat[ions] on chances from changes in [the Court's membership]). We think their fears are overstated. As we noted above, a judge's stated belief that a case should be overruled does not  J` make it so. See supra, at 10!11.  Most importantly, our decision today is intimately tied to the context in which it arose. This litigation involves a party's request under Rule 60(b)(5) to vacate a continuing injunction entered some years ago in light of  J a bona fide, significant change in subsequent law. The clause of Rule 60(b)(5) that petitioners invoke applies by its terms only to judgment[s] hav[ing] prospective application. Intervening developments in the law by themselves rarely constitute the extraordinary circumstances required for relief under Rule 60(b)(6), the only remaining avenue for relief on this basis from judgments lacking any prospective component. See J. Moore, 12 Moore's Federal Practice, 60.48[5][b], 60!181 (3d ed. 1997) (collecting cases). Our decision will have no effect outside the context of ordinary civil litigation where the propriety of continuing prospective relief is at issue.  J Compare Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989) (applying a more stringent standard for recognizing changes in the law and new rules in light of the interests of comity present in federal habeas corpus proceedings). Given that Rule 60(b)(5) specifically contemplates the grant of relief in the circumstances presented here, it can hardly be said that we have somehow warped the Rule into a  J means of allowing an `anytime' rehearing. See post, at  Jx 5 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).  Respondents further contend that [p]etitioners' [p]roposed [u]se of Rule 60(b) [w]ill [e]rode the [i]nstitutional [i]ntegrity of the Court. Brief for Respondents 26. Respondents do not explain how a proper application of Rule 60(b)(5) undermines our legitimacy. Instead, respondents focus on the harm occasioned if we  J` were to overrule Aguilar. But as discussed above, we do`!"    J no violence to the doctrine of stare decisis when we  J recognize bona fide changes in our decisional law. And in those circumstances, we do no violence to the legiti J macy we derive from reliance on that doctrine. Casey, 505 U.S., at 865!866.  As a final matter, we see no reason to wait for a better vehicle in which to evaluate the impact of  J subsequent cases on Aguilar's continued vitality. To evaluate the Rule 60(b)(5) motion properly before us today in no way undermines integrity in the interpretation of procedural rules or signals any departure from the responsive, nonagendasetting character of this  J Court. Post, at 6!7 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Indeed, under these circumstances, it would be particularly inequitable for us to bide our time waiting for another case to arise while the city of New York labors under a continuing injunction forcing it to spend millions of dollars on mobile instructional units and leased sites when it could instead be spending that money to give economically disadvantaged children a better chance at success in life by means of a program that is perfectly consistent with the Establishment Clause.  For these reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand to the District Court with instructions to vacate its September 26, 1985, order.  J ` BIt is so ordered.ă