Circumscribing Constitutional Identities In Kiryas Joel

Abstract

This Note examines the opinions and legal commentary on the Kirvas Joel' case decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1994.The case turned on the constitutionality, under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, of New York State legislation establishing a separate school district providing special education exclusively for Hasidic Jewish children.The Court deemed that legislation an unconstitutional establishment of religion. 2However, in line with certain dicta of the Court, the legislation was redrafted in a fashion which, until August 1996, appeared to permit the separate school district to continue.At present the fate of the district is once again being litigated .A substantial amount of commentary has already been written about Kiryas Joel.Student notes on the case are frequently concerned with the implications of Kiryas Joel for Supreme Court standards in deciding religious establishment cases-an area of law that has been notoriously troublesome to the Court in recent decades. 4 Professors and other legal scholars have analyzed the case as 1997