Vermont Will Let Religious Schools Use State Funds in Victory for Parents’ School Choice

LifeSite News ^ | 12/7/22 | Louis Knuffke

[marshmallow]

The decision comes after a US Supreme Court ruling this summer in support of religious freedom.

MONTPELIER, Vermont (LifeSiteNews) — Private religious schools in Vermont will now be able to draw on state funds for tuition aid after the state’s supreme court decided on November 30 to enforce a settlement made by government officials stipulating that barring such schools from funding is discriminatory and unconstitutional. 

A Town Tuition Program in the Green Mountain State had been launched to provide tuition aid to private secular schools in towns that had no public school, but private religious were excluded from the program. Several families and the Diocese of Burlington, which extends across the entire state, filed two lawsuits, ultimately resulting in the government agreeing that such an exclusion was neither constitutional nor enforceable. 

The settlement follows the U.S. Supreme Court decision Carson v. Makin, delivered in June of this year, in which the court ruled 6-3 that a state-run program for tuition aid in Maine could not bar “sectarian” schools—religiously affiliated schools—from taking part in the program. The high court said in the case that the exclusion of religious schools violated the free exercise of religion assured by the First Amendment. 

Chief Justice John Roberts reasoned in the case that if a state decided to extend tuition aid to private schools, it could not discriminate against religious schools for the simple reason that they were religious.

[No name given]

Finally, some good news for conservative Christians.

[joma89]

Agreed. Nice win there.