Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1088_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

13 

Opinion of the Court 

Private schools approved by the Department (rather than
accredited  by  NEASC)  are  likewise  exempt  from  many  of 
the State’s curricular requirements, so long as fewer than
60%  of  their  students  receive  tuition  assistance  from  the 
State.  For instance, such schools need not abide by Maine’s
“comprehensive, statewide system of learning results,” in-
cluding  the  “parameters  for  essential  instruction”  refer-
enced above, and they need not administer the annual state 
assessments  in  English  language  arts,  mathematics,  and 
science.  §§2951(6), 6209; see also ECF Doc. 24–2, at 9. 

There  are  other  distinctions,  too.    Participating  schools
need  not  hire  state-certified  teachers.  Compare  Me.  Rev.
Stat. Ann., Tit. 20–A, §13003(1), with §13003(3).  And the 
schools  can  be  single-sex.    See  ECF  Doc.  24–2,  at  11.  In 
short, it is simply not the case that these schools, to be eli-
gible for state funds, must offer an education that is equiv-
alent—roughly or otherwise—to that available in the Maine
public schools.

But the key manner in which the two educational experi-
ences are required to be “equivalent” is that they must both
be  secular.  Saying  that  Maine  offers  a  benefit  limited  to 
private secular education is just another way of saying that
Maine does not extend tuition assistance payments to par-
ents  who  choose  to  educate  their  children  at  religious
schools.  But “the definition of a particular program can al-
ways be manipulated to subsume the challenged condition,” 
and to allow States to “recast a condition on funding” in this
manner would be to see “the First Amendment . . . reduced 
to a simple semantic exercise.”  Agency for Int’l Development 
v.  Alliance  for  Open  Society  Int’l,  Inc.,  570  U. S.  205,  215 
(2013)  (quoting  Legal  Services  Corporation  v.  Velazquez, 
531 U. S. 533, 547 (2001)); see also Walz v. Tax Comm’n of 
City of New York, 397 U. S. 664, 696 (1970) (Harlan, J., con-
curring) (“The Court must survey meticulously the circum-
stances of governmental categories to eliminate, as it were,
religious  gerrymanders.”).    Maine’s  formulation  does  not