The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision requires the state of Maine to pay the tuition of students who attend religious schools since the state pays tuition at private schools where no public schools are available due to sparse population. The two religious schools that sued are run by born-again evangelical sects that ban the admission of gay students, students with gay parents, or gay staff. They also require the members of their staff to adhere to the school’s religious views.
But the State Attorney General says it would violate Maine law to fund schools that discriminate.
AUGUSTA, Maine — Religious schools got what they wanted when the Supreme Court allowed them to participate in a state tuition program.
But the state attorney general said the ruling will be for naught unless the schools are willing to abide by the same antidiscrimination law as other private schools that participate in the program.
An attorney for the families criticized the “knee-jerk” comments, and the leader of a religious group predicted further litigation.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Maine can’t exclude religious schools from a program that offers tuition for private education in towns that don’t have public schools. But religious schools didn’t have long to savor their victory before learning of a new hurdle.
Attorney General Aaron Frey said both Christian schools involved in the lawsuit have policies that discriminate against students and staff on a basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, preventing their participation in the tuition program despite the hard-fought litigation.
“The education provided by the schools at issue here is inimical to a public education. They promote a single religion to the exclusion of all others, refuse to admit gay and transgender children, and openly discriminate in hiring teachers and staff,” he said in a statement.
There was no immediate comment from two schools, Temple Academy in Waterville or Bangor Christian Schools.
Michael Bindas, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, said the attorney general isn’t paying close attention to the Supreme Court’s commitment to religious liberty in recent years.
“It was an erroneous opinion of the Maine attorney general that embroiled the state in five lawsuits spanning three decades and that culminated in the Supreme Court’s ruling against the state,” Bindas said Thursday in a statement. “The current attorney general seems to not have learned any lessons from that experience.”
If the state truly intends to use the state law to create another obstacle, then more litigation will be inevitable, said Carroll Conley, executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine.
The original lawsuit by three families seeking reimbursements to attend Christian schools dates to 2018, but it goes back even further.
The state always sought to maintain a solid line between church and state by reimbursing for private schools — but not religious schools. The goal was to give rural students without a public high school an education that’s similar to what public school students get.
In Maine, 29 private schools participate in the program, enrolling 4,526 students, officials said. Private schools that meet the state’s criteria can get about $12,000 in taxpayer funding per student.
The most immediate effect of the court’s ruling beyond Maine probably will be in nearby Vermont, which has a similar program.
The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision could propel school choice pushes in some of the 18 states that have not directed taxpayer money to private, religious education. It was seen as an affirmation for states that already have voucher programs open to religious schools.
But all schools receiving state tuition must abide by the Maine Human Right Act, which bans discriminating against someone because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or disability, Frey said.
The Legislature in the last session strengthened the law that clarified the scope of the Maine Human Rights Act in education. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills signed the bill into law last year.
The updated law, sponsored by Democratic Sen. Craig Hickman, the first openly gay African American to serve in both chambers of the Legislature, bans discrimination in education on the basis of “sex, sexual orientation or gender identity,” among other things.
The American Association of Christian Schools, meanwhile, brushed aside concerns of discrimination against the LGBTQ community.
“We don’t look at it as discrimination at all. We have a set of principles and beliefs that we believe are conducive to prosperity, to the good life, so to speak, and we partner with parents who share that vision,” said Jamison Coppola, spokesperson for the association.
Religious Tolerance Ends When Religions Become Intolerant
Intolereligiont: behavior exemplified by an intolerant religion
This is an important lesson to remember on how to resist; how to act while preparing for a life of inner exile within in a fascist state. When laws are passed or decisions are made, enforce them with painstaking exactitude to point out their hypocrisies. It is akin to enslaved persons slowing down work and being inefficient. It is one of the few forms of resistance one has in a State that is inevitably careening toward authoritarianism, the last chance to show true believers the absurdity and cruelness of their goals.
Hi Greg,
In the extreme, women also still have the right not to have sexual intercourse and/or get pregnant. That can also be a form of resistance. Of course, it would take a great deal of constraint, reflection and control of natural instinct but it could be done. Women have great power in this area.
The Lysistrata tactic is tried and true! (And let’s not forget that brilliant Utah legislator who claimed women can control semen once it’s in them. Gotta admit. Never heard that one before. Republicans are so creative!)
The latter is called the Lisonbee tactic, for the Republican Utah Legislator who proposed it :Karianne Lisonbee
“to control when they allow a man to ejaculate inside of them and to control that intake of semen”
I tell ya, that is some self control she must have.
Must take a lot of practice.
Here’s a funny one from W. Kamau Bell!
I can see the purpose of “semen intake control” which blocks ALL semen (just as a condom could do)
But is there some purpose for controlling the intake of only some of that semen?
Is she suggesting that women are capable of very fine motor control that is able to somehow allow through only sperm carrying a Y chromosome and exclude those sperm carrying an X (or vice versa) for example for the purpose of sex selection?
I’d like to hear more about this because it could revolutionize the fertility industry.
Mamie-
Thanks for link- profound and light hearted – a difficult balance. SNL’s clown sketch about abortion hit the profound but, with more of a sad note.
Poet,
All I’m saying is that women can decide whether or not to have sexual intercourse. I said nothing about women being able to control what sperm does. I’m not a nut.
Mamie
I know that.
I was just pointing out that some are nutty as a fruitcake.
Nutty as a pecan pie.
Nutty as a can of mixed nuts.
And nuttiest of all: nutty as a Republican politician from Utah.
Reminds me of the old joke about a pollster calling someone with questions. First one: Sex? Answer: Whenever possible. (Also popular: Occasionally.)
It should be easy for states to poison pill their voucher programs. However, the states will need to be careful to never create a document that discusses how to harm religious schools.
One of the things No Taxation Without Representation has always meant is that the purse-strings of public accountability follow the money, as one says, everywhere the money is defrayed.
That is why the Food Stamp Act dictates what beneficiaries can and cannot buy with their stamps. Of course we have seen mean examples of that dictatorship when mean people arrogate to dictate the rules, but the principle holds and we are stuck with it.
That is why private universities in receipt of federal funding have to follow very strict guidelines for their hiring practices and workplace environment. And so on …
One more time the Moron Majority of the Supreme Court Church Lads & Lady have chosen to ignore the Original Principles on which Our Republic is founded.
If the principle of subjecting everyone who receives government funds to the same requirements and monitoring were followed to the T, most religious schools would opt out because they would want neither the rules nor the oversight.
So the key is forcing ANy school that receives public funding to meet all the requirements and restrictions placed on public schools.
This would be an easy thing to implement in practice and I suspect the only thing that is preventing it from being done in the various states is that legislators and their friends are benefitting directly from contracts involving private and charter schools.
It’s the reason Bona Fide Public Schools have elective school boards, so the representation is rooted in the local community and hands on.
SDP—
(1)unfortunately, this good, solid concept is undermined by the fact that our pubschs are mandated by ESSA to follow a ludicrous, proven-harmful “ed-accountability system” policy that few families who have any experience with support. And have been mandated to follow some variation of it for 21 yrs—long enough for the public to get a general clue as to how ludicrous it is, some % of them seeking charters/ vouchers [whether religious or not] just to get away from it.
(2)Many if not most religious schools a couple or a few decades ago would totally have agreed with you: they didnn’t want public support because they didn’t want public interference in their religious curriculum. This has changed. Probably because congregations have been steadily decreasing [20% in the last 20 yrs!] Some churches don’t have the $ to continue their school programs without support, so are willing to compromise their principles. Others had no principles to start with, and look to a publicly-supported school biz as a way to plump up the kitty.
I would hope that unless schools publicly state that they do not discriminate based on “sex, sexual orientation or gender identity” they would not be allowed to receive public funds.
Not in MO!
Almost 20 year of attempts to.add non-discrimination bases on sexual orientation has been defeated in the State legislature.
And many school districts do not include it in Board policy.
As it happens, the two Maine schools also discriminate on religious grounds. Only born agains are hired. But discrimination is making a comeback so probably the MO leg would be ok with that.
“Only born agains are hired.”
How is that verified?
Do you have to show a second birth certificate?
Are you more likely to be hired if you are “born again and again?”
For example. Would the Dalai Lama be put at the top of the qualified applicants pile?
Job Advertisement Posted at Nunnery
We only hire born agains
So if they’ve been just once
Religious edict recommends
Denial of your nuns
Sadly, legislatures in red states believe that religious schools should be free to discriminate and still receive public funding
Two hopes and campaigns here:
1. School District will put guidelines and guardrails in place.
“Government tax payer paid employees can pray… but may NOT solicit student participation and NOT within 100 yards of students.
Students are informed that they should never feel pressured by kids or adults to participate in prayer.
. And if they feel the coach, teacher or anyone gives any hint of discomfort, ostracized, or judged (participation, grades,.etc) they can safely report it.
AND THE ACLU, AASA, NASSP, NAESP, AFT, NEA, NSBA Should ALL MAKE BOLD statements of STUDENT RIGHTS AND FEDERAL PROTECTION.
OCR contact information should be everywhere.
And then there will be a STUDENT’S RIGHT PROTECTION IN FRONT OF THE COURTS!
Should teachers and other school staff pray in public during work hours? Next step: overturning the 1962 ban on school prayer.
The deeper question is WHY do you want to pray in the classroom or on the 50 yard line? I often think about this when someone at the dinner table wants to lead everyone in a prayer. Usually they have a specific religion that they adhere to and they want to impose that on everyone at the dinner table. Why? Can’t one just say one’s prayer silently? I would never even WANT to exclude someone by my prayer, so it’s best to just say nothing in my view. I think that usually when one prays in public and makes a public spectacle of it, he/she wants to impose his particular view on others.
Of course.
Equal protection clause must fund all even Taliban school.
Funding and guns.
A twofer guaranteed by the First and Second amendments
Maine has other options.
Those 4,526 students are word more than 54-million dollars annually.
So, stop funding those 29 private schools that enroll those 4,526 students and create a rural school district with smaller schools that looks like an extremely gerrymandered voting district, each school would be taught by one or a few public school teachers and have the teachers also do the administrative chores. Instead of teaching, their schedules would be set up so they had admin time, too.
The parents that vote for the school board of that district live within the borders of that extremely gerrymandered school district.
Depending on the situation, some teachers could be traveling teachers driving from house to house in really remote areas so the teacher comes to the student or students.
And if they keep it up, Maine should just stop paying private schools to educate their youth altogether. Children in homes for whom there is no public school nearby can be homeschooled or taught remotely. If any of the parents of those kids complain, direct them to the religious schools and their sponsors.
Good for the Maine AG for upholding state law. It’s ironic that the Supremey Court-resemblant, with its discrimination loving, illegitimate majority, no longer believes in state rights. Only the Church has rights. This is clearly not over.
The Approach Maine is taking is the one that should be taken far more often because sometimes just adding or changing a few lines of text in the laws as written could effectively circumvent/render moot Supreme Court rulings.
In this case just the additional requirement that no school that discriminates can receive state funding is probably sufficient because the state is basing funding on another factor entirely than religious affiliation of schools.
Such “adjustments” to laws could be done very quickly by a state legislature especially if the governor called a special session.
And if the states made the necessary changes to the laws to render the challenge moot soon after the challenges were brought, the people making the challenges would be left chasing an empty bag.
Of course, the problem with the latter is that a state can’t be changing their laws all the time to avoid every nut case who brings a challenge and I suspect that several of the states who just lost cases never imagined they would lose because they assumed that Justices would not be deciding cases based purely on ideology.
They were wrong.
As a state, how do you decide which challenges you are going fight when you are dealing with a completely ideological and irrational Supreme Court?
Gordon Gekko said, “Greed is good.” Now, Republicans say greed is God.