The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a ban on taxpayer funding for religious schools, in a narrow but significant win for the school choice movement.

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In the 5-4 ruling, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court essentially backed a Montana tax-credit scholarship program that gave residents up to a $150 credit for donating to private scholarship organizations, helping students pay for their choice of private schools. The state’s revenue department made a rule banning those tax-credit scholarships from going to religious schools before the state’s supreme court later struck down the entire program.

“A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious,” Roberts wrote in the court’s opinion. . . .

A family receiving a scholarship originally could use it at any “qualified education provider,” which the court’s opinion noted means “any private school that meets certain accreditation, testing, and safety requirements.” The Montana Department of Revenue, citing the state constitution, then changed the definition of “qualified education provider” to exclude those “owned or controlled in whole or in part by any church, religious sect, or denomination.” . . .

Parents of children attending a religious private school sued, and a lower court ruled in their favor, holding that the tax credits did not violate the state constitution because they were not appropriations made to religious institutions. . . .

Roberts noted that the Montana scholarship program in no way violated the U.S. Constitution, noting that the Supreme Court has “repeatedly held that the Establishment Clause is not offended when religious observers and organizations benefit from neutral government programs.” . . .

Tuesday’s ruling is a victory for school choice proponents and some conservative religious groups who had challenged the provision in court. Montana’s program was similar to many across the U.S., and other states have proposed tax-credit scholarship programs but not passed them due to confusion about their legality.

(Excerpt from Fox News. Written by  Ronn Blitzer, Bill Mears, Shannon Bream.)

Attorney General Barr had this to say in a statement:

The Court’s decision represents an important victory for religious liberty and religious equality in the United States.  As the Court explained, religious people are “members of the community too,” and their exclusion from public programs because of their religion is “odious to our Constitution” and “cannot stand.”  We were pleased to see the Court agree with the Trump Administration that such blatant discrimination against religion has no place in our constitutional system.”

And from the White House:

We celebrate today’s Supreme Court decision on religious schools, which removes one of the biggest obstacles to better educational opportunities for all children.  States may no longer hide behind rules motivated by insidious bias against Catholics, known as Blaine Amendments, to exclude religious schools from public benefits.  Laws that condition public benefits, like need-based academic scholarships, on religious status demonstrate state-sanctioned hostility to religion, pressure people and institutions to censor their religious views, and stigmatize disfavored religions.  The Trump Administration believes that school choice is a civil rights issue, and that no parent should be forced to send their child to a failing school.  President Donald J. Trump will fight for school choice, and he will always defend our first freedom: the free exercise of religion.