BY MATT LAMB - ASSISTANT EDITOR – THE COLLEGE FIX
Montana violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First
Amendment when it barred religious schools from participating in a tax credit
program established by the Legislature, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday.
“The application of the no-aid provision discriminated
against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to
attend them in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the Federal
Constitution,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority in Espinoza v.
Montana Department of Revenue.
The program, set up in 2015, allowed individuals and
businesses to take tax credits on donations to organizations that granted
scholarships to students to attend private schools. The case stemmed from a
denial of scholarship funds to several parents including Kendra Espinoza, who
sought to use the scholarship money to send her two daughters to Stillwater
Christian School.
The public interest law firm Institute for Justice, which
represented the plaintiffs, hailed the ruling as a “major victory to parents
who want to choose the best school for their children, including religious
schools.”
Big Sky Scholarships, an organization set up specifically
to distribute tax credit scholarships, distributed money to Stillwater
Christian School and other private schools in the state.
The executive branch of Montana was divided on how to
implement the program in light of the “no-aid clause” in the state
constitution, which prevents tax dollars from going to religious entities.
So-called Blaine amendments have their roots in anti-Catholic bigotry,
according to IJ.
The Department of Revenue tried to bar money from going
to religious schools, implementing a regulation referred to as Rule 1, but the
Montana attorney general disagreed. The Montana Supreme Court sided with the
department in 2018 and struck down the entire program, leading to the Supreme
Court case.
The ruling today will open up the school choice program
to families who want to send their kids to religiously affiliated schools.
According to NPR, “70% of all private schools in Montana are religiously
affiliated,” and 12 of the 13 schools that received funding from the Big Sky
organization were religious schools.
The Trump administration praised the ruling. The White
House stated that “school choice is a civil rights issue,” adding that “no
parent should be forced to send their child to a failing school.”
Corey DeAngelis, director of school choice for the Reason
Foundation, also praised the ruling on Twitter: “Barring aid from religious
schools discriminates against religious schools and families who want that kind
of education for their children.”
Today’s ruling is a victory for school choice advocates
and especially for low-income and minority families, who benefit the most from
the programs. The Heritage Foundation argues that breaking up the public school
monopoly and giving students a variety of schools to choose from helps improve
graduation rates, citing a study on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.
