Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 60

Cite as:  591 U. S. ____ (2020) 

5 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

Court  to  “exclude”  religious  schools  from  the  scholarship 
program.  The provision mandated only that the state treas-
ury  not  be  used  to  fund  religious  schooling.    As  this  case 
demonstrates,  that  mandate  does  not  necessarily  require
differential treatment.  The no-aid provision can be imple-
mented in two ways.  A State may distinguish within a ben-
efit  program  between  secular  and  sectarian  schools,  or  it
may decline to fund all private schools.  The Court agrees
that the First Amendment permits the latter course.  See 
ante, at 20.  Because that is the path the Montana Supreme 
Court took in this case, there was no reason for this Court 
to address the alternative. 

By urging that it is impossible to apply the no-aid provi-
sion in harmony with the Free Exercise Clause, the Court 
seems  to  treat  the  no-aid  provision  itself  as  unconstitu-
tional.  See ante, at 21.  Petitioners, however, disavowed a 
facial  First  Amendment  challenge,  and  the  state  courts
were never asked to address the constitutionality of the no-
aid provision divorced from its application to a specific gov-
ernment benefit.  See, e.g., Reply Brief 8, 20, 21–22.  This 
Court therefore had no call to reach that issue.  See Adams 
v.  Robertson,  520  U. S.  83,  90  (1997)  (per  curiam)  (“ ‘[I]t
would  be  unseemly  in  our  dual  system  of  government’  to
disturb the finality of state judgments on a federal ground 
that  the  state  court  did  not  have  occasion  to  consider.” 
(quoting  Webb  v.  Webb,  451  U. S.  493,  500  (1981))).    The 
only question properly raised is whether application of the
no-aid  provision  to  bar  all  state-sponsored  private-school 
funding violates the Free Exercise Clause.  For the reasons 
stated, supra, at 2–3, it does not. 

Nearing the end of its opinion, the Court writes: “A State
need not subsidize private education.  But once a State de-
cides  to  do  so,  it  cannot  disqualify  some  private  schools
solely  because  they  are  religious.”  Ante,  at  20.   Because 
Montana’s Supreme Court did not make such a decision—
its  judgment  put  all  private  school  parents  in  the  same