Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 84

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

3 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

at 614.  Because no secondary school (secular or sectarian) 
is eligible for benefits, the state court’s ruling neither treats 
petitioners differently based on religion nor burdens their 
religious exercise.  See ante, at 2–6 (GINSBURG, J., dissent-
ing).  Petitioners remain free to send their children to the 
religious school of their choosing and to exercise their faith. 
To be sure, petitioners may want to apply for scholarships 
and  would  prefer  that  Montana  subsidize  their  children’s 
religious education.  But this Court had never before held 
unconstitutional  government  action  that  merely  failed  to 
benefit religious exercise.  “The crucial word in the consti-
tutional text is ‘prohibit’: ‘For the Free Exercise Clause is
written in terms of what the government cannot do to the 
individual,  not  in  terms  of  what  the  individual  can  exact 
from  the  government.’ ”    Lyng,  485  U. S.,  at  451  (quoting 
Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398, 412 (1963) (Douglas, J., 
concurring)).    Put  another  way,  the  Constitution  does  not
compel Montana to create or maintain a tax subsidy. 

Notably, petitioners did not allege that the no-aid provi-
sion itself caused their harm or that invalidating the entire 
tax-credit scheme would create independent constitutional 
concerns.  Even now, petitioners disclaim a facial challenge 
to the no-aid provision.  Reply Brief 8, 20–22.  Petitioners 
thus have no cognizable as-applied claim arising from the 
disparate treatment of religion, because there is no longer 
a program to which Montana’s no-aid provision can apply. 
Nor  is  it  enough  that  petitioners might  wish  that  Mon-
tana’s no-aid provision were no longer good law.  Petitioners 
identify no disparate treatment traceable to the state con-
stitutional  provision  that  they  challenge  because  the  tax-
credit program no longer operates.  See  Simon v. Eastern 
Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S. 26, 41–42, 44– 
46 (1976).1  Short of ordering Montana to create a religious 

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1 To  revive  their  as-applied  challenge,  petitioners  rely  on  Griffin  v.