EXCLUSIVE – Keith and Valori Radonis were eager to send their three children to St. Dominic Academy – a prestigious co-ed Catholic school for students in grades K-12 – hoping to qualify for the state’s Town Tuitioning Fund, a taxpayer-funded program reserved for students in small towns and rural areas with no available public schools to help alleviate education costs.
But the parents found a roadblock to their plans.
Amendments to the state’s human rights law imposing religious neutrality on schools, as well as new nondiscrimination policies on the basis of gender and sexual orientation, have barred faith-based schools from participating in the program, making the funds contingent on their compliance.
Maine’s amendments to its Human Rights Act are acting as a roadblock to faith-based institutions looking to accept students from religious families under the state’s tuition assistance program. (Fox News)
Last year, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Carson v. Makin stated that Maine could no longer withhold program funding from faith-based schools like St. Dominic Academy, arguing the practice violated the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor lambasted the outcome for allegedly “dismantling” separation of church and state. Chief Justice John Roberts, meanwhile, argued the state had been discriminating against religion.
One of the amendments made to the state’s Human Rights Act in 2021 would require schools to be religiously “neutral,” meaning the faith-based schools would be forced to be religiously neutral and express ideologies of all religions in their worship services.
“It gives the Maine Human Rights Commission—not parents or the school—the final word on how the school teaches students to live out Catholic beliefs regarding marriage, gender, and family life. As a result, faith-based schools are still being excluded from the state program to help rural families,” according to a case summary from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who is representing the plaintiffs.
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“One size doesn’t fit all and so being in a rural area where we have choices, we can fit each child, dependent on their needs, with the right school, the best choice for them. And when the state closes down options, it’s not right.”
The Radonis family says they want what’s best for their children and remain hopeful about the outcome of the case.
