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Page Number: 23

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ESPINOZA v. MONTANA DEPT. OF REVENUE 

Opinion of the Court 

a religious private school rather than a secular one, and for 
no other reason. 

The Department also suggests that the no-aid provision 
advances Montana’s interests in public education.  Accord-
ing to the Department, the no-aid provision safeguards the 
public school system by ensuring that government support 
is not diverted to private schools.  See Brief for Respondents 
19, 25.  But, under that framing, the no-aid provision is fa-
tally  underinclusive  because  its  “proffered  objectives  are
not  pursued  with  respect  to  analogous  nonreligious  con-
duct.”  Lukumi,  508  U. S.,  at  546.    On  the  Department’s
view, an interest in public education is undermined by di-
verting government support to any private school, yet the
no-aid provision bars aid only to religious ones.  A law does 
not advance “an interest of the highest order when it leaves
appreciable damage to that supposedly vital interest unpro-
hibited.”  Id., at 547 (internal quotation marks and altera-
tions omitted).  Montana’s interest in public education can-
not  justify  a  no-aid  provision  that  requires  only  religious
private schools to “bear [its] weight.”  Ibid. 

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. 

III 
The Department argues that, at the end of the day, there
is no free exercise violation here because the Montana Su-
preme  Court  ultimately  eliminated  the  scholarship  pro-
gram  altogether.    According  to  the  Department,  now  that
there is no program, religious schools and adherents cannot 
complain that they are excluded from any generally availa-
ble benefit. 

Two  dissenters  agree.  JUSTICE  GINSBURG  reports  that
the State of Montana simply chose to “put all private school
parents in the same boat” by invalidating the scholarship 
program, post, at 5–6, and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR describes