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While the case before the Court concerns rural Maine, the implications for parents across the nation are clear: state funds should continue to be available to parents for religious schools and is no violation of the Establishment Clause.
The difference between a “Christian organization” and an “organization that does Christian things” might seem like a distinction without a difference. But it is precisely this difference that is at the heart of the question presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in Carson v. Makin, a school-choice case that the justices are scheduled consider on Dec. 8, 2021.
The case involves families who live in towns in rural Maine too small to support secondary schools in a state that makes education for all not just a right but also mandatory. For nearly 150 years, Maine has administered one of the oldest school-choice programs in the nation to address this problem. And for more than 100 of those years, families who qualified for the financial benefits of the scheme could freely decide where their children would be educated.
But in 1980, Maine’s attorney general advised the state government that providing benefits for families who elected to send their children to religious schools violated the U.S. Constitution. Acting on this guidance, the state legislature later amended the law to exclude religious schools from the choices available to Maine families who otherwise qualified for the program. The attorney general’s opinion and the law that followed is based on an erroneous understanding of the Establishment Clause and an egregious disregard for the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. It is the privilege of my firm, First Liberty Institute, to serve as co-counsel alongside Institute for Justice to the families impacted by this law.
Continued below.
School choice is in jeopardy in a case before the Supreme Court
The difference between a “Christian organization” and an “organization that does Christian things” might seem like a distinction without a difference. But it is precisely this difference that is at the heart of the question presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in Carson v. Makin, a school-choice case that the justices are scheduled consider on Dec. 8, 2021.
The case involves families who live in towns in rural Maine too small to support secondary schools in a state that makes education for all not just a right but also mandatory. For nearly 150 years, Maine has administered one of the oldest school-choice programs in the nation to address this problem. And for more than 100 of those years, families who qualified for the financial benefits of the scheme could freely decide where their children would be educated.
But in 1980, Maine’s attorney general advised the state government that providing benefits for families who elected to send their children to religious schools violated the U.S. Constitution. Acting on this guidance, the state legislature later amended the law to exclude religious schools from the choices available to Maine families who otherwise qualified for the program. The attorney general’s opinion and the law that followed is based on an erroneous understanding of the Establishment Clause and an egregious disregard for the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. It is the privilege of my firm, First Liberty Institute, to serve as co-counsel alongside Institute for Justice to the families impacted by this law.
Continued below.
School choice is in jeopardy in a case before the Supreme Court
