Facts
- Maine provided tuition assistance for students living in districts without a public secondary school and without a contract with another district’s school.
- Under the program, parents selected a secondary school, and the school district paid tuition directly to the chosen school.
- Participating private schools had to meet accreditation or state-approval requirements.
- Maine limited tuition payments to “nonsectarian” schools, excluding schools considered “sectarian.”
- Parents sought to use tuition assistance to send their children to two religious schools that were otherwise eligible but were disqualified under the “nonsectarian” requirement.
- The parents sued the state education commissioner, alleging violations of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses and the Equal Protection Clause.
- The federal district court entered judgment for the state, and the First Circuit affirmed.
Issues
- Whether Maine’s exclusion of religious (“sectarian”) schools from an otherwise generally available tuition-assistance program violates the Free Exercise Clause.
- Whether Maine may justify the exclusion as regulating religious “use” of funds (religious instruction) rather than religious “status.”
- Whether Establishment Clause concerns or Maine’s asserted interest in providing a public-school equivalent permit excluding religious schools from the program.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed and remanded in a 6–3 decision.
- The Court held that Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement violated the Free Exercise Clause by denying a public benefit because of religious exercise.
- The Court rejected Maine’s attempt to distinguish permissible discrimination based on religious “use” from impermissible discrimination based on religious “status,” concluding the distinction did not justify the exclusion in this setting.
- The Court held Maine’s asserted interests, including avoiding Establishment Clause problems and maintaining a public-education substitute, did not satisfy the demanding review applicable to discrimination against religion in access to public benefits.
- The Court emphasized that Maine was not required to fund private education, but once it chose to subsidize private schooling it could not disqualify schools solely because they are religious.
Legal Principles
- A state violates the Free Exercise Clause when it excludes otherwise eligible recipients from a generally available public benefit because of religious status or religious exercise.
- When a benefit program imposes a disability on the basis of religion, the state must show an interest of the highest order pursued through narrowly tailored means.
- In neutral aid programs where funds reach schools through the independent choices of parents, including religious options does not itself violate the Establishment Clause.
- A state may choose not to subsidize private education, but it may not condition participation in a private-school subsidy on a school’s nonreligious character or nonreligious instruction.
Conclusion
The Court held that Maine’s tuition-assistance program, once opened to private schools, could not exclude religious schools through a “nonsectarian” requirement, because that restriction denied a generally available public benefit on the basis of religious exercise in violation of the Free Exercise Clause.