Illinois

AMENDMENT LANGUAGE

State Constitutional Provision

Ill. Const. art. X, § 3: "PUBLIC FUNDS FOR SECTARIAN PURPOSES FORBIDDEN. Neither the General Assembly nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by the State, or any such public corporation, to any church, or for any sectarian purpose."

RELEVANT CASES

State Courts

Toney v. Bower, 744 N.E.2d 351 (Ill. App. 2001) (Illinois appellate court held that an Illinois statute providing an income tax credit for a taxpayer's expenses in educating his or her children in a non-public elementary school or secondary school did not violate the Illinois constitutional provision prohibiting the state from making appropriations or payments from public funds to support sectarian schools, because the tax credit was not an "appropriation" of "public funds" under the constitutional provision).

Van Zandt v. Thompson, 839 F.2d 1215 (7th Cir. 1988) (Seventh Circuit held that an Illinois House resolution authorizing and making plans for the conversion of a hearing room in the state capitol building into a non-denominational, universal prayer room did not violate the Illinois constitutional provision prohibiting the use of public funds for sectarian purposes).

People ex rel. Klinger v. Howlett, 305 N.E.2d 129 (Ill. 1973).

Board of Ed., School Dist. No. 142, Cook County v. Bakalis, 299 N.E.2d 737 (Ill. 1973).

Cecrle v. Illinois Educational Facilities Authority, 288 N.E.2d 399 (Ill. 1972).

McCollum v. Board of Ed. of School Dist. No. 71, Champaign County, Illinois, 333 U.S. 203 (1948).

People ex rel. Latimer v. Board of Education of City of Chicago, 68 N.E.2d 305 (Ill. 1946).

St. Hedwig's Industrial School for Girls v. Cook County, 124 N.E. 629 (Ill. 1919).

Trost v. Ketteler Manual Training School for Boys, 118 N.E. 743 (Ill. 1918).

Dunn v. Addison Manual Training School for Boys, 117 N.E. 993 (Ill. 1917).

Dunn v. Chicago Industrial School for Girls, 117 N.E. 735 (Ill. 1917).

Reichwald v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 101 N.E. 266 (Ill. 1913) (Illinois Supreme Court held that granting a church permission to build a chapel on the premises of a county-owned poor farm for the use of the poor persons living there, with the county retaining ownership of the land, did not violate the Illinois constitutional provision prohibiting the state from making appropriations or payments from public funds in support of sectarian institutions, because the license to build the chapel was not a grant or donation from the county, and the county actually acquired a building from the church at no cost).

People ex rel. Ring v. Board of Education of District 24, 92 N.E. 251 (Ill. 1910).

Stead v. President, etc., of Commons of Kaskaskla, 90 N.E. 655 (Ill. 1909).

North v. Board of Trustees of University of Illinois, 27 N.E. 54 (Ill. 1891).

Cook County v. Chicago Industrial School for Girls, 18 N.E. 183 (Ill. 1888).

McCormick v. Burt, 95 Ill. 263 (1880).

REPEAL EFFORTS

See the Heritage Foundation website for a list of state contacts.