Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the most outspoken Democratic appointees to the high court, accused conservatives on the bench of dismantling the separation of church and state following a ruling that struck down a Maine policy that blocked religious schools from receiving state tuition aid.
In a blistering dissent, Sotomayor wrote that the court continued to “dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build.”
“Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation,” Sotomayor wrote. “If a State cannot offer subsidies to its citizens without being required to fund religious exercise, any State that values its historic anti-establishment interests more than this Court does will have to curtail the support it offers to its citizens.”
JUSTICES DEBATE DEFINITION OF RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND BRING UP CRT IN MAINE SCHOOL FUNDING CASE
The Supreme Court, in a landmark opinion cheered by school choice advocates, ruled Tuesday that Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a state program that allows parents to use vouchers to send students to public or private schools.
Justices ruled 6-3 in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts. The high court maintained that Maine’s tuition program cannot legally block the funds from being used on religious schools.
The plaintiffs in the case, a Maine family, argue that by excluding religious schools from the voucher program, the state is actively discriminating against religion. Michael Bindas, an attorney for the nonprofit legal group Institute for Justice, argued the case on behalf of the plaintiffs.
In his majority opinion, Roberts wrote that Maine’s exclusion of religious schools from its voucher program “‘effectively penalizes the free exercise of religion” by deeming religious schools ineligible for the program because they did not offer an “equivalent,” “nonsectarian” education.
“Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Roberts wrote. “Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.”
The court’s decision is the latest in a string of recent rulings substantially expanding the ability of religious entities, especially schools, to receive public funding. In a similar 2020 case, Espinoza v. Montana, the court ruled that so-called Blaine Amendments prohibiting religious schools from public funds were unconstitutional. The new ruling goes a step further and requires states to include religious schools in any program made available to nonreligious private schools.
In a Tuesday statement, the Institute for Justice’s Bindas praised the court’s decision as a victory for parental rights.
“Today’s decision makes clear, once and for all, that the government may not bar parents from selecting religious schools within educational choice programs, whether because of their religious affiliation or the religious instruction they provide,” Bindas said. “Parents have a constitutional right to choose such schools for their children, and the Court today held that a state cannot deny them that choice in programs that allow for other private options.”
The ruling has broad implications for school choice programs at a moment when many states are expanding such programs amid a renewed wave of public support.
Tommy Schultz, the CEO of the school choice advocacy organization the American Federation for Children, called the decision a “thunderclap for education freedom” and called on state legislators to expand school choice programs further in their states.
“Parents across America can celebrate today as the Court has affirmed their fundamental right to choose an education that works for their family,” Schultz said. “With today’s ruling, the rights of American students have been resoundingly confirmed. Now, legislators in every state must take action to provide as many options as possible to families in their state.”
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Meanwhile, Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, blasted the court’s “radical ruling” that “invent[s] doctrines to promote radical education policy outcomes.”
“Forcing American taxpayers to fund private religious education — even when those private schools fail to meet education standards, intentionally discriminate against students, or use public funds to promote religious training, worship, and instruction — erodes the foundation of our democracy and harms students,” Pringle said. “We are witnessing one of the most extreme Supreme Courts in modern history rewrite the most basic social commitments of our society — that publicly-funded education should be free and open to all without discrimination is one of those commitments. Shamefully, today’s decision tosses aside that social commitment.”
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