Public education is essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people. This is not just a good idea — it’s the law, written into the constitution of the state of Maine. For rural students without an appropriate public school, Maine set up an array of programs for different types of schools over the years. One option was that a school district could pay some of the tuition at a public or private school the family selected, as long as that school met necessary standards. The state also said that a religious school might be approved for the program, if it could provide a secular education without religious indoctrination. The point there was to provide education that didn’t violate religious freedom by forcing people to support, with tax dollars, indoctrination in a religion that was not their own.

In Carson v. Makin, the Supreme Court said this was unconstitutional. The tangled mess of fallout from this decision defies logic and common sense. Briefly: the Court decided that if public funds went to private, secular schools to provide otherwise unattainable public schooling, then it was discrimination against private religious schools not to do the same with them.

Two schools were connected but not technically parties to the case. The case therefore was hypothetical but, in their zeal, the Court took it anyway, writing that the policy was “discrimination against religion.” Discrimination against Christians is unconstitutional. Apparently, discrimination against others (LGBTQIA+, non-Christians, etc.) is fine as long as Christians are doing the discriminating. And taxpayers must fund it.

There are continuing court actions related to this issue. They are part of a legal battle between Crosspoint Church and Education Commissioner Pender Makin and the Maine Human Rights Commission. One of the Crosspoint attorneys, Lea Patterson, was until recently senior counsel for the First Liberty Institute (a supporter of Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership”). Recent comments about the case have come from David Hacker, who is vice president of litigation and senior counsel at First Liberty. He oversees all First Liberty litigation from trial courts to the Supreme Court.

Why such high octane, expensive legal resources? Consider this. The initial case basically alleged that religious schools were being treated differently from secular schools regarding public funds and that this was unfair. Maine requires that private schools that accept public funds must follow public school protocols, which ban harassment based on race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or disability. So the new lawsuit alleges that religious schools are being treated the same as secular schools! The legal issues could go on for years, eroding the wall of separation between state and church, fostering discrimination, and costing taxpayer dollars — all to the detriment of public education.

The goal of this turnabout is not religious freedom as they define it. This is part of an attempt to destroy public education and funnel students and public funds into private Christian schools that can indoctrinate some students while turning away others who don’t fit Project 2025’s “biblically based” family. And the Supreme Court thinks this is just fine.

So what can be done?

L.D. 2285, a directive to the Department of Education to establish a commission to study school construction policy and funding, was introduced last April. This commission would have reported on school construction needs, projected costs, and various ways to fund a statewide revamping of public schools. There was no vote before adjournment, but recently Governor Mills signed an executive order to accomplish the same goals with the Governor’s Commission on School Construction.

Assuming that this isn’t a case of good intentions going to committee to die, therein lies hope for public education as well as a solution to the constitutional issue. The Court did not say that taxpayers must fund a parallel system of education, just that if we fund private secular education we must also fund private Christian education. The way to keep the wall of separation is to stop sending public funds to private schools. Part of the commission’s work should be to research the cost of doing that. Taxpayer funds to private schools total approximately $56 million per year. Over the past 10 years alone, that adds up to over half a billion dollars. That could have funded a lot of construction.

If there is no political will to stop publicly funding private education, then let the commission come up with other proposals. The commission’s report is due April 15, 2025.