People of State of Illinois McCollum v. Board of Education of School Dist No 71 Champaign County Ill’s Empirical Analysis
333 U.S. 203 · 1948
Citation profile
352 federal appellate · 117 district · 257 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,235 later decisions (126 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Flast v. Cohen (1968), San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973)
352 federal appellate · 117 district · 257 state decisions — followed in 37 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette · Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Everson v. Board of Education
Cited together with School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III · Everson v. Board of Education · Lemon v. Kurtzman · Zorach v. Clauson · Engel v. Vitale
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1,235 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“This is beyond all question a utilization of the tax-established and tax-supported public school system to aid religious groups to spread their faith. And it falls squarely under the ban of the First Amendment.”
35 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he public school is at once the symbol of our democracy and the most pervasive means for promoting our common destiny. In no activity of the State is it more vital to keep out divisive forces than in its schools.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.