New York law requires that all children be provided free bus transportation to both public and private schools. When male children of Hasidic Jews in one community refused to be transported to their private religious school on buses driven by female drivers, the city responded by providing only male drivers on that route.
Female drivers sued the city, alleging that the city's practice violated the first amendment's nonestablishment of religion clause. A federal district court in New York agreed. The court acknowledged that the children would have to choose between free transportation and their religious beliefs (which prohibited any social interaction between the sexes), but concluded that such a dilemma was necessary in order to avoid a violation of the nonestablishment of religion clause. Bollenbach v. Monroe-Woodbury Central School District, 659 F. Supp. 1450 (S.D.N.Y. 1987).
