Home Christian News Supreme Court: Religious Schools Must Get Maine Tuition Aid

Supreme Court: Religious Schools Must Get Maine Tuition Aid

In largely rural Maine, the state allows families who live in towns that don’t have public schools to receive public tuition dollars to send their children to the public or private school of their choosing. The program has excluded religious schools.

Students who live in a district with public schools or in a district that contracts with another public system are ineligible for the tuition program.

Parents who challenged the program argued that the exclusion of religious schools violates their religious rights under the Constitution. Teacher unions and school boards said states can impose limits on public money for private education without running afoul of religious freedoms.

Michael Bindas, a lawyer for the libertarian Institute for Justice who argued for the parents at the high court, said the court made clear Tuesday that “there is no basis for this notion that the government is able to single out and exclude religious options.”

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, sharply criticized the court for “forcing taxpayers to fund religious education” and cloaking “this assault on our Constitution in the language of non-discrimination.”

In the Maine case, parents sued in federal court to be able to use state aid to send their children to Christian schools in Bangor and Waterville. The schools in question, Bangor Christian School and Temple Academy, are uncertain whether they would accept public funds, according to court filings.

The Bangor school said it would not hire teachers or admit students who are transgender. Both schools said they do not hire gay or lesbian teachers, according to court records.

In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that states must give religious schools the same access to public funding that other private schools receive, preserving a Montana scholarship program that had largely benefited students at religious institutions.

In that case, the court said states don’t have to allow public money to be used in private education. But they can’t keep religious schools out of such programs, once created.

But even after that ruling, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Maine program, holding that the state was not violating anyone’s constitutional rights by refusing to allow taxpayer money to be used for religious instruction. The three-judge panel included retired Justice David Souter, who occasionally hears cases in the appeals court.

Tuesday’s decision reversed that appeals court ruling and made clear that religious schools must be part of the mix when states devote public money to private school choice programs.

“This ruling affirms that parents should be able to choose a school that is compatible with their values or that honors and respects their values. By shutting out parents with certain values, that’s discrimination run rampant,” Leslie Hiner, vice president of legal affairs for the school choice group EdChoice.

Most of the justices attended religious schools, and several send or have sent their children to them.

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Associated Press writers Collin Binkley in Boston and Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared here