School Choice and Religious Liberty Advocates Just Won Big at the Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a big win for both school choice and religious liberty advocates in 2020 when it held, in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, that if a state provides educational subsidies that help parents send their children to private schools, the state “cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

In a 6-3 decision issued today, the Court repeatedly invoked Espinoza while delivering another big win for the school choice and religious liberty side. At issue in Carson v. Makin was whether Maine’s tuition assistance program violates the Constitution by excluding private schools that offer “sectarian” education. In an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court found the state to be in constitutional error.

“There is nothing neutral about Maine’s program,” Roberts wrote, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. “The State pays tuition for certain students at private schools—so long as the schools are not religious. That is discrimination against religion. A State’s antiestablishment interest does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwis