In Lemon v Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971), the U.S. Supreme Court held that state statutes that provided funding for non-public, non-secular schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In deciding the case, the Court established a three-prong test, which is now commonly referred to as the “Lemon test.” To avoid running afoul of the Establishment Clause, a statute must have a secular legislative purpose, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither promotes nor inhibits religion, and it must not foster “excessive government entanglement with religion.”
