US Supreme Court upholds Montana school-choice tax credit

The following quote may be attributed to Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to uphold Montana’s tuition tax credit program in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue:

“The Supreme Court was right to rule that states can’t oust parents and children from neutral benefit programs simply because they choose a religious private school. This is consistent with the court’s 2017 decision in the ADF case Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, which unequivocally reaffirmed that states can’t impose ‘special disabilities on the basis of religious views or religious status.’ The court was right to not allow the dead hand of 19th century anti-Catholic bigotry—which motivated the state constitutional provision at issue here—to put a stranglehold on educational resources desperately needed by parents and their children.”

Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the high court on behalf of the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization and Michigan’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic School that urged it to reverse the Montana Supreme Court ruling which struck down the tuition tax credit program. ADF attorneys represented Trinity Lutheran Church in its win at the U.S. Supreme Court and also represented the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization in its 2011 win at the high court in defense of Arizona’s tuition tax credit program.

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith.

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