Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1088_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 5

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

1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the 
preliminary  print  of  the  United  States  Reports.  Readers  are  requested  to 
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that 
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 20–1088 
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DAVID CARSON, AS PARENT AND NEXT FRIEND OF O. C., 
ET AL., PETITIONERS v. A. PENDER MAKIN 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT 

[June 21, 2022] 

CHIEF  JUSTICE  ROBERTS  delivered  the  opinion  of  the 

Court. 

Maine  has  enacted  a  program  of  tuition  assistance  for 
parents  who  live  in  school  districts  that  do  not  operate  a 
secondary school of their own.  Under the program, parents
designate the secondary school they would like their child
to attend—public or private—and the school district trans-
mits payments to that school to help defray the costs of tu-
ition.  Most private schools are eligible to receive the pay-
ments,  so  long  as  they  are  “nonsectarian.”  The  question
presented is whether this restriction violates the Free Ex-
ercise Clause of the First Amendment. 

I 
A 

Maine’s Constitution provides that the State’s legislature 
shall “require . . . the several towns to make suitable provi-
sion, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance 
of public schools.”  Me. Const., Art. VIII, pt. 1, §1.  In ac-
cordance with that command, the legislature has required 
that every school-age child in Maine “shall be provided an