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“The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Maine violated the Constitution when it refused to make public funding available for students to attend schools that provide religious instruction. The opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts was a broad ruling, making clear that when state and local governments choose to subsidize private schools, they must allow families to use taxpayer funds to pay for religious schools… The court’s three liberal justices dissented.” SCOTUSblog
The right supports the decision, arguing that it protects religious liberty.
“This case is similar to one the Court heard from Montana two years ago. As the Chief wrote then: ‘A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.’…
“As Chief Justice Roberts says, Maine could always choose another policy. ‘It could expand the reach of its public school system, increase the availability of transportation, provide some combination of tutoring, remote learning, and partial attendance, or even operate boarding schools of its own,’ he writes. What Maine can’t do is subsidize private schools while excluding the religious schools.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“Rather than try to stand up or prop up unsustainable public schools where there are few students, Maine pays part of the tuition of parents in [its] rural towns to send their children to their private schools. But the law has two limitations: Parents must choose a school that is accredited by the regional accreditation body, and the schools cannot be religious. So the state will pay tuition for any accredited private school, teaching any ideology or worldview and backed by any organization — unless that accredited school is something people recognize to be religious…
“Parents could even send their children to school in Canada or Switzerland under this tuition program. They could use these tax dollars to send their children to all-girls schools or to French-language schools. The schools eligible under this program could also be boarding schools. Schools receiving this money could have no set curriculum at all, as is the case for Bluehill Harbor School, or they could be explicit culture warrior schools, such as Walnut Hill School for the Arts. They just can’t be ‘sectarian,’ which means the institutions cannot profess a system of belief that involves God.”
Timothy P. Carney, Washington Examiner
“A myth has grown up around Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 phrase ‘wall of separation’ that treats religion, not as a thing the government cannot mandate or regulate, but as a kind of kryptonite the government must avoid any contact with even if it means separation of religious people and institutions from equal participation in what the state provides. That is not what the establishment clause was understood to mean in 1791…
“Allowing students to take state aid to a religious school on the same terms as a secular school does not establish a church, any more than allowing them to use Pell Grants at a religious college or, for that matter, allowing people to buy Bibles with their Social Security checks, establishes a state church. As Roberts summarized: ‘The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools—so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion.’”
Dan McLaughlin, National Review
The left criticizes the decision, arguing that it erodes the separation between church and state.
The left criticizes the decision, arguing that it erodes the separation between church and state.
“The 1st Amendment says that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ In 1947, the Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition against the establishment of religion applied to the actions of state and local governments. All nine justices in that case agreed that this provision is best understood through the words of Thomas Jefferson, that there should be a wall separating church and state…
“For decades, the court applied this principle in limiting the ability of the government to provide financial support for religious activities, including for religious schools. This followed James Madison’s view that it was abhorrent to tax people to support the religions of others. The central idea is that the government and its use of funds should be secular. But now the law has shifted dramatically.”
Erwin Chemerinsky, Los Angeles Times
“In a passage destined to be cited by future litigants, [Justice Breyer] raised the most worrisome prospect of what is coming next: Does the holding mean ‘that a school district that pays for public schools must pay equivalent funds to parents who wish to send their children to religious schools?’…
“If the answer to Breyer’s question were to be yes, Carson v. Makin would be a sea change in how education is financed in the US. It would mean that states would have to fund Catholic schools, yeshivas and madrasas so long as the state pays for public schools… On its face, the Carson decision doesn’t go that far. Maine’s provision is relatively unusual, stemming from the rural nature of the state, where some towns can’t afford their own schools. But Breyer’s worry is real. The next step for religious schools will be to demand universal funding. And since this was a 6-3 decision, Roberts’s vote wouldn’t be necessary to reach the radical, topsy-turvy conclusion that, under the free-exercise clause, states must pay for religious education.”
Noah Feldman, Bloomberg
“The two Maine schools that may now receive public funding are openly discriminatory, expelling students and teachers who do not adhere to evangelical Christianity. LGBTQ students, as well as straight children of same-sex couples, are not welcome, nor are LGBTQ teachers. Even custodians must be born-again Christians. One school teaches students to ‘refute the teachings of the Islamic religion’ and believe that men serve as the head of the household. Another requires students to sign a ‘covenant’ promising to glorify Jesus Christ and attend weekly religious services…
“The conservative majority, however, has perfected the art of ignoring genuine discrimination while perceiving anti-Christian persecution where none exists. In the process, they are elevating the rights of one sect over all others.”
Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
A libertarian's take
“Carson v. Makin is a potential boon to poor and disadvantaged children. Social science research indicates that the private school choice is often especially valuable to poor and minority children, and that some religious schools — notably Catholic schools — are particularly adept at improving the performance of disadvantaged students. You don’t have to endorse the religious doctrines of these schools (as an atheist, I myself do not) to recognize the valuable opportunities they offer… “The ruling also offers an opportunity to transcend today’s increasingly divisive culture wars over education… Both red and blue states increasingly seek to impose one-size-fits-all state-sponsored dogma through their public education systems. School choice that includes a wide range of religious and secular options allows dissenters to go their own way and creates valuable competition that parents can take advantage of.”
Ilya Somin, NBC News Think
