“Maine residents should never be forced to support religious education or discrimination,” said Alex J. Luchenitser, associate legal director of Americans United. “Diverting public funds to those uses would violate the religious freedom of taxpayers, parents, and students.”

In 2019, Americans United fought against multiple attacks on public education and religious freedom as federal and state officials proposed new private school voucher schemes that would violate religious freedom by diverting taxpayer dollars from public schools to fund private, mostly religious schools that can discriminate against children and families.

The state of Maine should not be required to fund religious education as part of a private school voucher program, Americans United and several allied groups argued in a friend-of-the-court brief filed on Nov. 6.