Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
E37571
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris is a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a school voucher program, ruling that public funds could be used for tuition at religious schools without violating the Establishment Clause.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Zelman v. Simmons-Harris canonical | 3 |
| Zelman, Superintendent of Public Instruction of Ohio, et al. v. Simmons-Harris et al. | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T252984 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Context triple: [Establishment Clause, keyCase, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris]
-
A.
Lee v. Weisman
Lee v. Weisman is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held clergy-led prayer at public school graduation ceremonies unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause.
-
B.
Everson v. Board of Education
Everson v. Board of Education is a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court case that applied the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to the states and articulated the modern “wall of separation between church and state” doctrine.
-
C.
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Lemon v. Kurtzman is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the "Lemon test" for determining whether government actions violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
-
D.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 is a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited the use of race in public school student assignment plans under the Equal Protection Clause.
-
E.
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Wisconsin v. Yoder is a landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that held compulsory school attendance laws could not be applied in a way that violated Amish parents’ religious freedom.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Target entity description: Zelman v. Simmons-Harris is a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a school voucher program, ruling that public funds could be used for tuition at religious schools without violating the Establishment Clause.
-
A.
Lee v. Weisman
Lee v. Weisman is a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held clergy-led prayer at public school graduation ceremonies unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause.
-
B.
Everson v. Board of Education
Everson v. Board of Education is a 1947 U.S. Supreme Court case that applied the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to the states and articulated the modern “wall of separation between church and state” doctrine.
-
C.
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Lemon v. Kurtzman is a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court case that established the "Lemon test" for determining whether government actions violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
-
D.
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1
Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 is a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court case that limited the use of race in public school student assignment plans under the Equal Protection Clause.
-
E.
Wisconsin v. Yoder
Wisconsin v. Yoder is a landmark 1972 U.S. Supreme Court case that held compulsory school attendance laws could not be applied in a way that violated Amish parents’ religious freedom.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Establishment Clause case
ⓘ
United States Supreme Court case ⓘ education law case ⓘ landmark case ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
church–state relations
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ education law ⓘ |
| arguedDate | February 20, 2002 ⓘ |
| chiefJusticeAtDecision | William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| citation | 536 U.S. 639 ⓘ |
| city | Cleveland ⓘ |
| constitutionalProvision |
Establishment Clause
ⓘ
First Amendment to the United States Constitution ⓘ |
| country |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decisionDate | June 27, 2002 ⓘ |
| decisionType | 5–4 decision ⓘ |
| dissentingJustices |
David H. Souter
ⓘ
John Paul Stevens ⓘ Ruth Bader Ginsburg ⓘ Stephen G. Breyer ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 00-1751 ⓘ |
| fullCaseName |
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Zelman, Superintendent of Public Instruction of Ohio, et al. v. Simmons-Harris et al.
|
| holding |
Public funds may be used for tuition at religious schools under a neutral program of private choice
ⓘ
The Ohio school voucher program does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment ⓘ |
| issue | Whether a school voucher program that includes religious schools violates the Establishment Clause ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| legalTestApplied | private choice test ⓘ |
| lowerCourtCitation | 234 F.3d 945 (6th Cir. 2000) ⓘ |
| lowerCourtDecision | Sixth Circuit held the voucher program unconstitutional ⓘ |
| majorityJustices |
Anthony M. Kennedy
ⓘ
Antonin Scalia ⓘ Clarence Thomas ⓘ Sandra Day O’Connor ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| originatingJurisdiction | United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ⓘ |
| precedentFor | constitutionality of school voucher programs including religious schools ⓘ |
| programChallenged | Ohio Pilot Project Scholarship Program ⓘ |
| programCharacteristics |
aid reached religious schools only as a result of independent decisions of parents
ⓘ
program was neutral with respect to religion ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
school choice
ⓘ
school vouchers ⓘ separation of church and state ⓘ |
| result | school voucher program upheld ⓘ |
| reversed | United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ⓘ |
| state | Ohio ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Description of subject: Zelman v. Simmons-Harris is a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld a school voucher program, ruling that public funds could be used for tuition at religious schools without violating the Establishment Clause.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Zelman, Superintendent of Public Instruction of Ohio, et al. v. Simmons-Harris et al.