Suit was filed this week in a Vermont federal district court alleging that Vermont's Act 73, enacted last year, while apparently neutral is in fact a disguised attempt to exclude religious schools from the state's Town Tuition and Dual Enrollment programs. Prior 2nd Circuit decisions had held that explicit exclusion of religious schools from these programs was unconstitutional. The complaint (full text) in Bishop v. Saunders, (D VT, filed 10/27/2026), alleges in part:
6. Eligibility for Dual Enrollment is contingent on Town Tuition: a student must either be in a public school or receiving Town Tuition funding at a private school to be eligible....
15. Section 21 of Act 73 excludes all religious schools through more subtle, yet no less unconstitutional, criteria that create a religious gerrymander....
17. Under Act 73, to be eligible for Town Tuition, some—but not all— private schools must: (1) be located in a school district ... that does not operate a public school; (2) have had at least 25% of its enrollment composed of publicly funded students during the 2023–2024 school year; and (3) comply with minimum class-size requirements regardless of school size.
18. Together, these three requirements create a de facto religious exclusion that cuts out all religious schools from the Town Tuition Program.
The complaint alleges that Act 73 disqualified all 15 of the religious schools that were previously eligible for funding, but only 15 of the 61 secular private schools that were previously eligible. The complaint goes on to contend that Act 73 violates the Free Exercise Clause, the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection clause and its protection of parents' right to control the upbringing of their children.
ADF issued a press release explaining the lawsuit.
