Equal Treatment Cited The appeals court, which sits in Philadelphia, ruled that both displays amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

The law was a device to advance the teaching of religious views, he said, and as such amounted to an unconstitutional "establishment" of religion.

In Board of Education v. Mergens (No. 88-1597), the Court will decide whether the law amounts to an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

The two cases pose the question of whether the display of these images on government property amounts to an unconstitutional "establishment" of religion.

In an opinion last November, the Sixth Circuit declared that the law was an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

That district was declared an unconstitutional establishment of religion by the United States Supreme Court.

A lower court ruled in the two cases that both displays constituted an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

Beginning with her earliest years on the court, Justice O'Connor adopted her own test for evaluating whether government policy amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

The eight Justices agreed, however, that the Federal law was not an unconstitutional "establishment of religion" by the Government.

The Court in 1970 construed the law to include non-religious conscientious objectors, hoping to avoid striking it down as an unconstitutional establishment of religion.