The Alaska Department of Law is reviewing Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Carson v. Makin for any impact on Alaska law.
In a 6-3 ruling, the Court held that a Maine law violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause by permitting public funds to be spent for tuition assistance at private nonsectarian schools, but not at private religious schools.
As the court has leaned more conservative, it has begun to side with parents and religious institutions that have challenged “Blaine Amendment” state policies prohibiting them from receiving education-related funds that were available for government schools.
The court’s three leftist justices dissented from the majority. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision “upended constitutional doctrine” and she has a “growing concern for where this Court will lead us next.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling explained that states “need not subsidize private education,” but if they choose to do so, they cannot categorically exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of religious exercise.
“The question on Alaskans’ minds is what does this mean for our own state constitution’s prohibition on spending public funds on a private education?” said Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills. “Initially, what we know is that the specific facts of this case are not directly on point for Alaska. The case involved discriminating against religious schools compared to other private schools. Our constitution distinguishes between a private and a public education. However, the details matter, and we will need to fully review and evaluate the opinion to determine what, if any, impact it has,” Mills said.
Alaska does not have a private school tuition program directly analogous to the Maine law at issue in Carson. Article VII, section 1 of Alaska’s Constitution provides that public funds shall not be used “for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
“We know that Alaska’s public correspondence school program has been in the news recently, but that is a separate issue from the broader potential impacts of this Supreme Court case, which is focused on the religious versus non-religious distinction,” Mills clarified. “The department is still reviewing the administration of Alaska’s correspondence school program under state law and will separately be looking at the broader questions raised by this case,” she said.
Alaska, by statute, provides that “a correspondence study program may provide an annual student allotment to a parent or guardian” and that this allotment may be used “to purchase nonsectarian services and materials from a public, private, or religious organization” provided certain criteria are met.
