Originally published at National Catholic Register
The Supreme Court case struck down exclusion as religious discrimination in 2022, but state officials quickly passed a law that in effect excluded most religious schools.
Catholic parents who live in rural Maine — far from any public schools — are challenging a state law that excludes most faith-based schools from Maine’s rural tuition-assistance program.
Maine’s tuition-assistance program — the second-oldest in the nation — is designed to help rural families attend private school in areas that do not have public schools. In 1982, Maine began excluding faith-based private schools, leading to a Supreme Court case that struck down the exclusion as religious discrimination in 2022.
Though the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision Carson v. Makin affirmed that the “sectarian exclusion” violates the Free Exercise Clause because it excludes schools on the basis of their religious exercise, Maine state officials quickly passed a law that in effect excluded most religious schools. This law most directly affects the rural families that are now unable to use the tuition program to send their children to local Catholic schools.
Catholic parents Kevin and Valori Radonis, along with the local Catholic school St. Dominic Academy, are challenging the state law in
