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Excellent ruling from the Supreme Court earlier today concerning religious schools. By a 6-3 margin, the justices determined that if states use public funds for private school tuition programs, those states could not exclude private religious schools from participating.

That’s a mouthful, I know. Let’s unpack this a little…

This particular case centered around a program in the state of Maine which helps pay for private school tuition for students who live in rural areas. For students in that state who don’t have easy access to public schools because of where they live, this program provides tuition assistance for them to instead attend a qualified private school nearby.

That sounds reasonable, right? Well, not so fast.

Maine’s law was written to explicitly exclude religious schools from this program. You could have a private school that met all the qualifications to teach those rural students, but if the school was a faith-based school, that alone automatically disqualified it from receiving tuition for applicable students.

Earlier today, the Supreme Court said such practice was unconstitutional. You cannot “identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise,” as written by Chief Justice John Roberts in today’s opinion. That is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

That’s the right ruling.

Just so we’re clear, today’s ruling obviously does not require states to provide tuition for private schools. Nor does it prohibit states from establishing certain criteria for private school tuition programs. For example, a state could certainly choose to pay for private tuition based on a student’s geography (like Maine did), or in an area with failing public schools, or for families below a certain poverty level, etc. Those criteria don’t appear to be unconstitutional.

However, if a state chooses to establish certain private school tuition programs, it can no longer discriminate against private faith-based schools.

This is a huge win for religious liberty, and a huge win for education.