The Sleeper SCOTUS Case That Threatens the Separation of Church and State
The Supreme Court’s upcoming abortion- and guns-rights cases are getting much of the attention right now, but a third, relatively overlooked case could transform one of the most consequential areas of American law: the separation of Church and state. If the plaintiffs win, states and municipalities could be required to use taxpayer dollars to supplement strands of private religious education that many Americans would find deeply offensive, including schools that exclude non-Christian or LGBTQ students, families, and teachers.
The case, , involves a challenge to the Maine Department of Education’s use of state tuition dollars to supplement “nonsectarian” schools. Under Maine’s constitution, the state legislature must require “towns to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public schools.” But more than half of Maine’s 260 school districts—which it calls “administrative units”—do not have their own public schools. The Maine legislature passed a statute allowing those districts to either contract with established public schools or approved private schools in nearby districts to educate their children, or to “pay the tuition … at the public school or the approved private school of
