Tilton v. Richardson’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
280 federal appellate · 97 district · 210 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,027 later decisions (98 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2024 · most notably Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc. (1982), Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971)
280 federal appellate · 97 district · 210 state decisions — followed in 34 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
Applies 20 U.S.C. § 701 · 20 U.S.C. § 711 · 20 U.S.C. § 751 · 26 U.S.C. § 512
Relies on Lemon v. Kurtzman · National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. · Rosado v. Wyman · School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III · Everson v. Board of Education
Cited together with Lemon v. Kurtzman · Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York · Everson v. Board of Education · Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist · School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III
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 1,027 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“college students are less impressionable”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage“might 'in part have the effect of advancing religion.'”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage““Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.””
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.