On Friday, The Daily Caller reported that a federal judge has ruled that the State of Vermont must reimburse parents who were denied state tuition benefits because they sent their children to religious schools.

The article reports:

Under the settlement, the state is prohibited from continuing to deny parents access to tuition based on a school’s “religious status, affiliation, beliefs, exercise, or activities,” and residents of districts that previously denied funds on this basis must be reimbursed. District Judge Christina Reiss cited the Supreme Court’s ruling last summer in Carson v. Makin, a case that similarly found Maine could not exclude religious schools from its tuition program without violating First Amendment religious liberty protections.

Vermont’s town tuitioning program, like Maine’s, exists to help educate children in rural areas where public schools may not exist or cover all grade levels. Where the district has no available option in a town, it pays to send students to a private or public school of the parent’s choice.

The Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The Founding Fathers wanted to prevent the establishment of a ‘state’ religion. Refusing to reimburse parents in a state reimbursement program because they choose to send their children to a religious school has nothing to do with establishing a ‘state’ religion–it is discrimination against religious people and is not allowed in the Constitution.

The article notes:

“Carson v. Makin made clear that the government cannot deny or restrict benefits to people based on religion,” Institute for Justice Attorney David Hodges told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Now that the question of Vermont’s tuitioning program has been settled, I am unaware of any state that is unconstitutionally restricting educational benefits in the same manner as Vermont.”

On Sept. 13, 2022, the Vermont Secretary of Education sent a letter to district superintendents instructing them that they can no longer deny tuition to religious schools “that meet educational quality standards” in light of the Carson v. Makin decision.

Religious schools are free to teach consistent moral values. Some of our public schools are reluctant to teach moral values. This ruling is good news for children and parents in Vermont.