Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, ruled in favor of Simmons-Harris. Zelman continued the case and appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, which sustained the voucher program. First Amendment The First Amendment protects the rights to freedom of religion and to freedom of expression from government interference. The First Amendment comes into play because the taxpayers of Ohio said that the program was a violation of the Establishment Clause, one of the two clauses of the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause guarantees freedom of religion and strictly prohibits the government from passing any legislation to establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another; it thus enforces the "separation of church and state." Since the program was designed to provide no incentive for religious private, secular private, or public schools, the taxpayers did not want their money to pay for the children who wanted religious schooling. Majority opinion Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the majority opinion. He declared that the school voucher program was not in violation of the Establishment Clause. He also deemed that government support for religion was constitutional if it did not occur de jure but de facto and also failed to specify or to encourage religious schools. Cleveland's program was declared to be religiously neutral and to be giving parents the benefit of true private choice. Rehnquist referred to the program's aims as strictly secular assistance for the poor, low-performing children, who would be otherwise stuck in the communities that were failed by the school district. Moreover, the issue was whether the school voucher program encouraged or inhibited religion directly. The Court used its precedent in Mueller v. Allen (1983) that aid could constitutionally be given to parents but not to schools. The Court found that there were thus no religious advances, in reference to the Establishment Clause. The likelihood of religious private schools in the area at the particular time and the decision of the student were not fundamental in the constitutionality of the voucher program. The vouchers were available to a general class of citizens who met the needed criteria and were given a personal, independent choice of voucher-accepting schools. As a state plan to make a better education readily available for poor students, there was no religious bias. Offering parents the choice to use the voucher for tutorial aid in public school, a scholarship for religious or nonreligious private schools or