Supreme Court Rules That State Aid to Private Schools Must Include Religious Schools
The case was the court’s latest on whether the Constitution allows the states to exclude religious groups from government programs.
By Adam Liptak
June 30, 2020
Updated 11:18 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states must allow religious schools to participate in programs that provide scholarships to students attending private schools.
The decision, a victory for conservatives, was the latest in a series of Supreme Court rulings that the free exercise of religion bars the government from treating religious groups differently from secular ones. It opens the door to more public funding of religious education.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the 5-to-4 ruling. The court’s four more liberal members dissented.
“A state need not subsidize private education,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”
The case involved a Montana program enacted in 2015 “to provide parental and student choice in education.” The program was financed by private contributions eligible for tax credits, and it provided scholarships to students in private schools.
Soon after the program started, a state agency said students attending religious schools were not eligible in light of a provision of the state’s Constitution that bars the use of government money for “any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect or denomination.”
more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/supreme-court-religious-schools-aid.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20200630&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=16112385&segment_id=32236&user_id=75ee940ebe2fd3e9d0a6bb93cf283302
| 
