| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
27 Dec 2004 07:55:31 AM |
| Object: |
Religious Schools Not Entitled To Voucher Aid, Says Court |
CHURCH & STATE DECEMBER 2004 page 20 (260)
AU BULLETIN
http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cs_2004_12
[EXCERPTS]
Religious Schools Not Entitled To Voucher Aid, Says Court
A federal appeals court ruled in October that Maine education officials may
exclude private religious schools from a tuition program.
A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a
28-page decision in Eulitt v. Maine concluding that the state had
legitimate "interests in concentrating limited state funds on its goal of
providing secular education, avoiding entanglement, and allaying concerns
about accountability that undoubtedly would accompany state oversight of
parochial schools' curricula and policies."
The Maine law provides tuition for students in districts that do not have
their own public schools. But the law bars school districts from paying
tuition to any private school. Parents in Minot County who chose to send
their children to a Catholic school sued the state.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a
friend-of-the-court brief with the 1st Circuit, urging the judges to reject
the parents' lawsuit.
"Maine's decision not to extend tuition funding to religious schools does
not ... require residents to forgo religious convictions in order to
receive the benefit offered by the state - a secular education," the 1st
Circuit ruled in its Oct. 22 decision.
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