St. Dominic Academy V. Makin

        The Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment were put in place to protect individuals religious freedoms. However, there are often disagreements and conflicts that emerge due to these differing interpretations of the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause. Within the case St. Dominic Academy v. Makin the two religious clauses in the First Amendment come into conflict with each other. 

Education and religion in public schools has been a highly debated topic for a long time. There have been disagreements about if prayer should be allowed in schools, if the Ten Commandments are allowed to be in the classroom, what religious ideas are permitted to be taught and many more issues. Due to these controversies within public schools parents have the option to send their children to private religious schools that correspond with their religious beliefs. However, there have still been constitutional issues regarding private religious schools especially when it comes to financial aid. 

St. Dominic Academy is a private catholic school that is located in Auburn, Maine. The school teaches traditional Catholic beliefs and places emphasis on assisting other individuals. Some examples of how the school has promoted this is through raising money for food kitchens, rebuilding homes that were destroyed by hurricanes and other voluntary acts. Keith and Valori Radonis are farmers who hold deeply Catholic beliefs and hoped to send their children to schools that also promoted their religious beliefs. Within Maine they established a tuition assistance program to help families in rural areas to send their students to private schools when there is no public school nearby. However, in 1982, Maine decided to exclude religious schools including St. Dominic Academy from the financial aid program. This decision to exclude religious schools led to the Supreme Court Case, Carson v. Makin. In this case the Supreme Court ruled that Maine’s law of excluding financial aid to those who attended religious private school was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court Judges referred to Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, which set a precedent that the Free Exercise Clause did not allow discrimination against eligible individuals from a public benefit only because of their religious character. So in this case the Supreme Court ruled that Maine’s law of excluding financial aid to those who attended religious private school was unconstitutional.

Maine officials anticipated the decision by the Supreme Court that their law denying financial aid for individuals attending religious private schools would be declared unconstitutional. So Maine put in place a new law that will provide financial aid to students if they attend a private religious school if the school allows all religious expression equally. This caused schools such as St. Dominic Academy unable to teach according to their catholic beliefs. This law also gives control to the Maine Human Rights Commission to determine what is being taught in these religious private schools and not the administration, teachers, or parents. Ultimately this law accomplishes the same goal of the previous law as it prevents individuals who live in rural areas from receiving financial aid.  

The argument for why this law would be seen as unconstitutional is because it would be a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. This law puts a prior restraint on parents and their ability to choose if they want to send their children to a private religious school which is an aspect of their Free Exercise rights. In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer which was used as a precedent in Carson v. Makin it stated that individuals can not be discriminated against due to their religious beliefs. In this case the law would clearly be discriminating against religious schools as due to what the school is teaching the students do not receive benefits. Ultimately, this law is preferring non-religious individuals over religious individuals as financial aid is provided for students attending private schools and this is not constitutional. Another issue with this case is that the Maine Human Rights Commission will be determining what should be taught and what is allowed. This will lead to excessive entanglement and there will not be separation of church and state. On the other hand the reasons why this law may be seen as constitutional is because without the law in place it may be seen as a violation of the Establishment Clause. The state would be providing individuals with financial aid to send their children to private religious schools. The financial aid is public money and students attending private religious schools may be seen as a form of endorsing and promoting religion. Another argument as to why this is not a violation of one’s Free Exercise clause is that the parents are still allowed to send their children to private religious school they would just have to pay more money. This may provide a financial burden on the families but it does not prevent them from attending religious schools. 

Both of the arguments are compelling for this case but the arguments that this law is unconstitutional is more convincing. I believe that monitoring and controlling what private religious schools are teaching is a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. This clearly creates excessive entanglement between the Maine Human Rights Commission and St. Dominic's Academy. This would be a violation of the Establishment Clause as there would not be a separation of church and state. Additionally the Maine Human Rights Commission would be discriminating against religious beliefs and this would ultimately lead to the denial of financial aid. This demonstrates the privilege that non religious families would receive if they chose to attend a private school. The argument that without this law there would be a violation of the Establishment Clause is not very convincing. Whether the student chooses to attend a private school or a religious private school they receive the same amount of financial aid. Maine would not be promoting religion over non-religion and if there would be any advancement of religion it would be merely incidental which is not unconstitutional.  St. Dominic Academy v. Makin is one of the many cases that demonstrates the conflict between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause come into conflict and in this case the individual's Free Exercise rights should be protected. 

Sources

https://www.becketlaw.org/case/st-dominic-academy-v-makin/

https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/carson-v-makin/

https://thetablet.org/catholic-family-school-sue-maine-over-exclusion-from-tuition-assistance-program/

https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-1088