Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 65

4 

ESPINOZA v. MONTANA DEPT. OF REVENUE 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

“it  cannot  disqualify  some  private  schools  solely  because 
they are religious.”  Ante, at 20.  I shall explain why I disa-
gree. 

B 
As the majority acknowledges, two cases are particularly
relevant:  Trinity  Lutheran  Church  of  Columbia,  Inc.  v. 
Comer, 582 U. S. ___, and Locke v. Davey, 540 U. S. 712.  In 
Trinity Lutheran, we considered whether Missouri could ex-
clude a church-owned preschool from applying for a grant 
to  renovate  its  playground.    The  Court  assumed  that  the 
Establishment Clause permitted the State to make grants 
of this kind to church-affiliated schools.  See 582 U. S., at 
___ (slip op., at 6).  But, the Court added, this did not “an-
swer the question” because there is “ ‘play in the joints’ be-
tween what the Establishment Clause permits and the Free 
Exercise Clause compels.”  Ibid.  The Court therefore went 
on  to  consider  the  burdens  that  Missouri’s  law  imposed
upon the church’s right to free exercise. 

By  excluding  schools  with  ties  to  churches,  the  Court
wrote, the State’s law  put the church “to a choice: It may
participate in an otherwise available benefit program or re-
main  a  religious  institution.”    Id.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  10). 
That kind of “ ‘indirect coercion,’ ” the Court explained, “im-
poses a penalty on the free exercise of religion that triggers
the most exacting scrutiny.”  Id., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 10, 
11).  Finding that a State’s “policy preference for skating as
far as possible from religious establishment concerns” could
not satisfy that standard, the Court held that the Free Ex-
ercise Clause required Missouri to include church-affiliated 
schools  as  candidates  for  playground  renovation  grants. 
Id., at ___ (slip op., at 14). 

We confronted a different kind of aid program, and came
to  a  different  conclusion,  in  Locke.  There,  we  reviewed  a 
Washington law that offered taxpayer-funded scholarships 
to college students on the express condition that they not