Hunt v. McNair

Summary

The Court held that South Carolina's Educational Facilities Authority Act, as interpreted and applied to the proposed revenue-bond financing for Baptist College at Charleston, did not violate the Establishment Clause. The Act had a secular purpose, limited financing to secular facilities, and did not produce an impermissible primary effect or excessive governmental entanglement on the record presented. Justice Brennan, dissenting, would have found the arrangement unconstitutional because its continuing surveillance and control of the College's educational and fiscal affairs created excessive church-state entanglement.