WHO: Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys
WHAT: Available for media interviews following hearing in Mid Vermont Christian School v. Saunders
WHEN: Immediately following the hearing, which begins at 10 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, Sept. 22
WHERE: U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse, Courtroom 1703, 40 Foley Sq., New York, or view the livestream. To schedule an interview, contact ADF Director of Media Engagement Jacqueline Ribeiro at (202) 961-9396.
NEW YORK – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Mid Vermont Christian School and one of its families will be available for media interviews Tuesday following oral arguments in Mid Vermont Christian School v. Saunders.
For decades, the Vermont Agency and Board of Education banned all religious schools from the Town Tuition Program and other public benefit programs. In 2021, the 2nd Circuit held that Vermont’s exclusion of religious schools violated the First Amendment. But last year, Vermont enacted a new law, Act 73, that accomplishes the same result: Religious schools and their families are yet again ineligible for the state’s public education benefits. At the hearing, ADF attorneys will argue that such religious discrimination by the government violates the First Amendment just as much now as it did before.
“Religious schools and the families they serve aren’t second-class citizens, yet Vermont continues to treat them as such by excluding them from a public benefit available to most non-religious private schools,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman, vice president of U.S. litigation, who will argue before the court on behalf of Mid Vermont. “All parents should be able to send their kids to schools that are the best fit for them, and the First Amendment protects parents’ right to choose religious schools.”
Vermont’s tuition program pays for students residing in school districts that do not operate public high schools to attend a public school or approved private school of the students’ choice. But Vermont’s new law imposes new criteria on some, but not all, private schools. The result is that all religious approved independent schools—and their students—are yet again excluded from the Town Tuition, Dual Enrollment, and Early College programs, while the majority of secular schools and their students remain eligible.
ADF attorneys filed suit against Vermont officials in 2023 after they expelled the school and its students from participating in all state-sponsored sports because the school followed its religious beliefs by forfeiting a girls’ basketball game against a male player. The Vermont Principals Association paid $566,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees to settle that portion of the lawsuit.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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