Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-1088_dbfi.pdf
Page Number: 7

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

3 

Opinion of the Court 

teacher ratio of not more than 30 to 1.  §§2902(2), 2902(3), 
4706(2), 2902(6)(C).

The program imposes no geographic limitation: Parents
may direct tuition payments to schools inside or outside the
State,  or  even  in  foreign  countries.    §§2951(3),  5808.    In 
schools  that  qualify  for  the  program  because  they  are  ac-
credited,  teachers  need  not  be  certified  by  the  State, 
§13003(3), and Maine’s curricular requirements do not ap-
ply, §2901(2).  Single-sex schools are eligible.  See Me. Rev. 
Stat.  Ann.,  Tit.  5,  §4553(2–A)  (exempting  single-sex  pri-
vate, but not public, schools from Maine’s antidiscrimina-
tion law).

Prior to 1981, parents could also direct the tuition assis-
tance payments to religious schools.  Indeed, in the 1979– 
1980 school year, over 200 Maine students opted to attend 
such schools through the tuition assistance program.  App.
72.  In 1981, however, Maine imposed a new requirement
that any school receiving tuition assistance payments must
be  “a  nonsectarian  school  in  accordance  with  the  First 
Amendment of the United States Constitution.”  Me. Rev. 
Stat. Ann., Tit. 20–A, §2951(2).  That provision was enacted 
in  response  to  an  opinion  by  the  Maine  attorney  general
taking the position that public funding of private religious
schools  violated  the  Establishment  Clause  of  the  First 
Amendment.  We subsequently held, however, that a bene-
fit  program  under  which  private  citizens  “direct  govern-
ment aid to religious schools wholly as a result of their own 
genuine  and  independent  private  choice”  does  not  offend 
the Establishment Clause.  Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 
U. S.  639,  652  (2002).  Following  our  decision  in  Zelman, 
the Maine Legislature considered a proposed bill to repeal 
the “nonsectarian” requirement, but rejected it.  App. 100, 
108. 

The  “nonsectarian”  requirement  for  participation  in
Maine’s tuition assistance program remains in effect today.