Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 58.0

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

3 

GINSBURG, J., dissenting 

treats them in the wake of the state court’s decision. 

Accordingly, the Montana Supreme Court’s decision does 
not place a burden on petitioners’ religious exercise.  Peti-
tioners  may  still  send  their  children  to  a  religious  school.
And the Montana Supreme Court’s decision does not pres-
sure them to do otherwise.  Unlike the law in Trinity Lu-
theran,  the  decision  below  puts  petitioners  to  no  “choice”: 
Neither  giving  up  their  faith,  nor  declining  to  send  their 
children to sectarian schools, would affect their entitlement 
to  scholarship  funding.  582  U. S.,  at  ___  (slip  op.,  at  10).
There simply are no scholarship funds to be had.

True, petitioners expected to be eligible for scholarships 
under the legislature’s program, and to use those scholar-
ships at a religious school.  And true, the Montana court’s 
decision disappointed those expectations along with those 
of  parents  who  send  their  children  to  secular  private 
schools.  But, as JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR observes, see post, at 
3 (dissenting opinion), this Court has consistently refused 
to  treat  neutral  government  action  as  unconstitutional
solely  because  it  fails  to  benefit  religious  exercise.    See 
Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 412 (Douglas, J., concurring) (“[T]he 
Free Exercise Clause is written in terms of what the gov-
ernment cannot do to the individual, not in terms of what 
the individual can exact from the government.”). 

These  considerations  should  be  fatal  to  petitioners’  free 
exercise claim, yet the Court  does not confront them.  In-
stead, the Court decides a question that, in my view, this
case  does  not  present:  “[W]hether  excluding  religious
schools  and  affected  families  from  [the  scholarship]  pro-
gram was consistent with the Federal Constitution.”  Ante, 
at 7 (majority opinion).  The Court goes on to hold that the
Montana Supreme Court’s application of the no-aid provi-
sion  violates  the  Free  Exercise  Clause  because  it  “ ‘condi-
tion[s] the availability of benefits upon a recipient’s willing-
ness to surrender [its] religiously impelled status.’ ”  Ante, 
at 11 (quoting Trinity Lutheran, 582 U. S., at ___–___ (slip