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Constitutional Law Keyed to Choper
Carson v. Makin
Citation:
596 U.S. 767, 142 S. Ct. 1987, 213 L. Ed. 2d 286 (2022)Facts
Maine’s Constitution requires the state to provide free public education to all children. Due to Maine’s rural geography, many school districts do not operate their own secondary schools. To fulfill its constitutional obligation, Maine created a tuition assistance program allowing parents in these districts to select approved public or private schools for their children, with the state paying tuition directly to those schools. Since 1981, Maine has required that participating private schools be “nonsectarian.” The petitioners, two families living in districts without public secondary schools, wanted to use the tuition assistance program to send their children to Bangor Christian Schools and Temple Academy, both religious schools accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Both schools were deemed ineligible for the program because they were “sectarian” institutions that would use the funds to teach religious content. The petitioners sued, claiming that Maine’s “nonsectarian” requirement violated their constitutional rights under the Free Exercise Clause.
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