In
Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, (US Sup. Ct., June 30, 2020), the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision held that Montana's exclusion of religious schools from its scholarship tax credit program violates the Free Exercise clause of the U.S. Constitution. The Montana Supreme Court had invalidated the entire scholarship program because it included religious schools, relying on the "no aid" provision of the Montana constitution. Chief Justice Roberts majority opinion, joined by Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, said in part:
This case also turns expressly on religious status and not religious use. The Montana Supreme Court applied the no-aid provision solely by reference to religious status. The Court repeatedly explained that the no-aid provision bars aid to “schools controlled in whole or in part by churches,” “sectarian schools,” and “religiously-affiliated schools.”... Applying this provision to the scholarship program, the Montana Supreme Court noted that most of the private schools that would benefit from the program were “religiously affiliated” and “controlled by churches,” and the Court ultimately concluded that the scholarship program ran afoul of the Montana Constitution by aiding “schools controlled by churches.”... The Montana Constitution discriminates based on religious status just like the Missouri policy in Trinity Lutheran, which excluded organizations “owned or controlled by a church, sect, or other religious entity.”...
...Status-based discrimination remains status based even if one of its goals or effects is preventing religious organizations from putting aid to religious uses.
Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion which was joined by Justice Gorsuch, saying in part:
I write separately to explain how this Court’s interpretation of the Establishment Clause continues to hamper free exercise rights. Until we correct course on that interpretation, individuals will continue to face needless obstacles in their attempts to vindicate their religious freedom.
Justice Alito filed a concurring opinion, saying in part:
Respondents argue that Montana’s no-aid provision merely reflects a state interest in “preserv[ing] funding for public schools,”... known as “common schools” during the Blaine era. Yet just as one cannot separate the Blaine Amendment from its context, “[o]ne cannot separate the founding of the American common school and the strong nativist movement.” Spearheaded by Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education from 1837 to 1848, the common-school movement did not aim to establish a system that was scrupulously neutral on matters of religion. (In a country like ours, that would have been exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.) Instead the aim was to establish a system that would inculcate a form of “least-common denominator Protestantism.”This was accomplished with daily reading from the King James Bible, a curriculum that, Mann said, let the book “speak for itself.” ... Yet it was an affront to many Christians and especially Catholics, not to mention non-Christians.
Mann’s goal was to “Americanize” the incoming Catholic immigrants. In fact, he and other proponents of the common-school movement used language and made insinuations that today would be considered far more inflammatory.
Justice Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion, saying in part:
I was not sure about characterizing the State’s discrimination in Trinity Lutheran as focused only on religious status, and I am even less sure about characterizing the State’s discrimination here that way....
Maybe it’s possible to describe what happened here as status-based discrimination. But it seems equally, and maybe more, natural to say that the State’s discrimination focused on what religious parents and schools do—teach religion....
Most importantly, though, it is not as if the First Amendment cares. The Constitution forbids laws that prohibit the free exercise of religion. That guarantee protects not just the right to be a religious person, holding beliefs inwardly and secretly; it also protects the right to act on those beliefs outwardly and publicly.
Justice Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Kagan, saying in part:
[T]he Montana court remedied the state constitutional violation by striking the scholarship program in its entirety. Under that decree, secular and sectarian schools alike are ineligible for benefits, so the decision cannot be said to entail differential treatment based on petitioners’ religion.
Justice Breyer filed a dissenting opinion, joined in part by Justice Kagan, saying in part:
It is true that Montana’s no-aid provision broadly bars state aid to schools based on their religious affiliation. But this case does not involve a claim of status-based discrimination. The schools do not apply or compete for scholarships, they are not parties to this litigation, and no one here purports to represent their interests. We are instead faced with a suit by parents who assert that their free exercise rights are violated by the application of the no-aid provision to prevent them from using taxpayer-supported scholarships to attend the schools of their choosing. In other words, the problem, as in Locke, is what petitioners “‘propos[e] to do—use the funds to’” obtain a religious education. ....
I agree with the majority that it is preferable in some areas of the law to develop generally applicable tests. The problem, as our precedents show, is that the interaction of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses makes it particularly difficult to design a test that vindicates the Clauses’ competing interests in all—or even most—cases.That is why, far from embracing mechanical formulas, our precedents repeatedly and frankly acknowledge the need for precisely the kind of “‘judgment-by-judgment analysis’” the majority rejects.
Justice Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, saying in part:
Neither differential treatment nor coercion exists here because the Montana Supreme Court invalidated the tax-credit program entirely....
To be sure, petitioners may want to apply for scholarships and would prefer that Montana subsidize their children’s religious education. But this Court had never before held unconstitutional government action that merely failed to benefit religious exercise....
[T]he Montana Supreme Court remedied a state constitutional violation by invalidating a state program on state-law grounds, having expressly declined to reach any federal issue....
NPR reports on the decision.
