Members of the Jamestown School Committee v. Dr. Thomas C. Schmidt, as Commissioner of Education of the State of Rhode Island

COFFIN, Chief Judge.

The issue in this case is whether a Rhode Island statute providing bus transportation to nonpublic school children beyond school district limits constitutes a “law respecting an establishment of religion” and is therefore invalid under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs are several federal, state and local taxpayers and two organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State.1 The district court, finding that the law provides sectarian school children with “greater options at greater public expense than…