KEY CASES Establishment Clause Maine Scholarship Program Excluding Sectarian Schools Unconstitutional In Carson v. Makin , 142 S.Ct. 1987 (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court struck a tuition assistance program that requires school districts to transmit payment to the secondary school — public or private, in-state or out-of-state — that parents would like their child to attend as long as the school is nonsectarian. Maine is the most rural state in the union. Not all school districts operate a public secondary school, so the legislature responded with this financial aid program. In administering the program, Maine considered a "sectarian school to be one that is associated with a particular faith or belief system and which, in addition to teaching academic subjects, promotes the faith or belief system with which it is associated and/or presents the material taught through the lens of this faith." According to the court, "The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools – so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion." Maine and the First Circuit argued that Maine’s limitation was a permissible "use" based limitation on public funds, rather than an exclusion based on the school’s religious status. The […]
