Carson v. Makin (U.S. Supreme Court, 2021)

At issue in this case is a free exercise challenge to a Maine secondary school tuition assistance program. To provide for high school education in over half of the State’s school districts that do not have public secondary schools, Maine pays for students to attend public or private schools which provide secular education, including religiously affiliated schools that do not indoctrinate religion. The lawsuit was brought by parents seeking to send their children to religious schools. ADL joined a legal brief asserting that the history of the Free Exercise Clause reflects it does not require states to fund religious education. To do so, would be an unwarranted and substantial expansion of the Free Exercise Clause contrary to the Court’s existing precedent.