Court lets ruling stand barring vouchers in Maine religious schools

Published: 2006-12-01

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- A ruling upholding a school voucher program's exclusion of religious schools was allowed to stand Nov. 27 by the Supreme Court. By declining to review Maine's voucher law, the court let stand a bar on vouchers being used at religious schools. Prior to 1980, students in small Maine towns with no high schools could use tuition vouchers to attend the secondary school of their choice, including religious ones. In 1980 the state attorney general said the policy violated the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause separating church and state, and in 1983 the state Legislature codified the decision, eliminating religious schools from the program. Currently about 17,000 Maine students in 145 small towns use vouchers to attend public and private high schools in the state and out of state. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court in April ruled the restrictions are constitutionally valid because they stem from the Legislature's desire to comply with the Constitution, not from religious hostility.

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