Supreme Court Delivers Major Win for School Choice and Religious Liberty

On June 30, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major win for school choice and religious liberty.
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On June 30, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major win for school choice and religious liberty in a case argued by the libertarian public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice.

Writing for the 5-4 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts declared that “a State need not subsidize private education...But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious."

The plaintiff in the case, Kendra Espinoza, was able to send her kids to a private religious school in Montana thanks to a state scholarship subsidy program, which supplemented the extra income she made as a bookkeeper and night janitor. In 2018, the Montana Supreme Court killed that program on the grounds that it violated the state constitutional prohibition on public funding for religious schools.

Justice Roberts found that the Montana ruling “expressly discriminates on the basis of religious status.” That decision strengthens an earlier high court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of scholarship programs for sectarian schools.

According to the Institute for Justice, the decision will have an impact on most of the 14 states where scholarship students who want to attend religious schools face legal obstacles.

Reason's Katherine Mangu-Ward sat down with Kendra Espinoza in January on the eve of her Supreme Court hearing.

Interview by Katherine Mangu-Ward. Edited by Ian Keyser. Intro by Regan Taylor. Cameras by Meredith and Austin Bragg.