Supreme Court hands win to religious schools

The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that a Montana policy that excludes religious schools from a general student aid program violates religious freedoms protected under the U.S. Constitution.

The 5-4 majority decision, which fell along ideological lines, said that by making state-backed private school scholarships off-limits to parochial schools, the program ran afoul of First Amendment protections for the free exercise of religion, which prohibits the government from treating religious and secular groups differently.

“A state need not subsidize private education,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “But once a state decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

The court’s four more liberal justices dissented.

The dispute presented an overlapping conflict between a Montana tax-credit program that had the potential to benefit religiously affiliated schools, a provision of the state constitution that bars public aid to religious institutions and federal safeguards for religious freedom.

The case arose after Montana’s top court struck down the program after finding it ran afoul of a Montana constitutional provision that bans state tax dollars from funding sectarian schools, which prompted several parents to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.