An appeals court in Vermont reportedly ruled that the state cannot deny tuition fee funding for students in religious schools.
The Christian Post (CP) said the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction that requires the state of Vermont to include students from religious schools in their Town Tuition Program. The case was filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington together with Catholic high school students and their parents against the state of Vermont. The injunction issued by the circuit court last Wednesday ruled in the side of the Catholic plaintiffs.
The Town Tuition Program, as per CP, provides educational vouchers for students attending religious schools out of the absence of public schools in their towns. However, students from the diocese's schools like the Rice Memorial High School were not given the said benefit because they were denied it.
The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals presiding justice on the case, Judge Steven Menashi, stressed that said studies are entitled to the benefits of the Town Tuition Program.
"(The students are) entitled to TTP funding to the same extent as parents who choose secular schools for their children, regardless of Rice's religious affiliation or activities," Menashi said.
"The Court emphasized that '[s]tatus-based discrimination remains status based even if one of its goals or effects is preventing religious organizations from putting aid to religious uses' and that a state cannot justify discrimination against religious schools and students by invoking an 'interest in separating church and State more fiercely than the Federal Constitution," he stressed.
Menashi also pointed out in the decision that the Supreme Court had reminded states four years ago that denying benefits on the sole account of religious identity "imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion" that the state can only justify if it is for "the highest order." He said that the Court had already clarified last June that the rule on the said benefits does not allow a state to apply its constitutional prohibition "on aid to religion that would bar religious schools from public benefits'" just because the character of the school is of religious nature.
Vermont state, as per Menashi, has violated the First Amendment by "discriminating against religious schools and students" out of denying them the benefits of the TTP program.
"The Supreme Court has made clear that the prevailing practice in Vermont--maintaining a policy of excluding religious schools from the TTP--is unconstitutional," Menashi pointed out.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, the plaintiff's legal counsel, said that the judge's decision is a powerful affirmation of the need to provide equal access to people of faith for public benefits. They disclosed in a statement by their Legal Counsel Paul Schmitt that the state of Vermont has long been forcing "families to choose between exercising their religion or enjoying a publicly available benefit," which is unconstitutional
"Once Vermont chose to subsidize private education, it could not disqualify some private schools solely because they are 'too religious.' When the state offers parents school choice, it cannot take away choices for a religious school," Schmitt stressed.
CP said that the case filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington is but one of several cases filed against a state in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals where religious schools can not receive benefits similarly given to other private schools on account of them being "religious."
