ABSTRACT
The First Amendment to the US Constitution provides that Congress shall make no law "respecting an establishment of religion." Current doctrine under the Establishment Clause directs that government must be neutral about religion, aiding neither a particular religion nor all religions. Various government-sponsored programs provide public school students with free textbooks, transportation, lunches, and other services. A frequent Establishment Clause issue is whether benefits may also go to students attending parochial schools. The child-benefit theory is an approach that typically allows government programs to reach parochial school students by finding that individual students are the primary aid recipients and not the church or denomination. The child-benefit approach led the Court to conclude that the "school children and the state alone are beneficiaries" of the appropriations, and not religious schools. The child-benefit theory allows religious institutions to benefit indirectly from religiously neutral governmental programs; the religious institution must not itself be the principal or primary beneficiary.
