Background
St. Dominic Academy, a Catholic elementary and middle school in Maine operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, sought to participate in Maine’s tuition-assistance program, which allows parents to direct public funds toward private school tuition. The school does not currently receive tuition assistance but stated it meets the requirements to become approved for the program.
Complicating the school’s participation is Maine’s Human Rights Act (MHRA), as amended in 2021. The MHRA’s nondiscrimination provisions apply to any school receiving public funding. At issue are four rules: the Employment Rule (prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and other protected classes, with limited carveouts for religious employers); the Religious Expression Rule (prohibiting discrimination between religions if religious expression is permitted); the Religious Nondiscrimination Rule (prohibiting discrimination based on religion, added by the 2021 amendments); and the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Rule (prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, with a carveout only for religious schools not receiving public funds).
St. Dominic objected to these rules because its Catholic mission includes preferring Catholic students, requiring students to attend religious classes and Mass, and objecting to facilitating gender identity changes without parental consent. The school argued it would not accept tuition assistance rather than comply with these mandates. The district court denied the school’s motion for a preliminary injunction in August 2024. St. Dominic appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The First Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s order denying the preliminary injunction motion. The court found the case raised significant First Amendment questions concerning whether Maine’s nondiscrimination rules, as applied to religious schools participating in the tuition-assistance program, violate the Free Exercise Clause or other constitutional protections. The appeal required the court to analyze whether plaintiffs demonstrated a likelihood of success on their constitutional claims and whether they faced irreparable harm absent preliminary relief.
The panel, composed of Judges Montecalvo and Kayatta (following the death of Judge Selya after oral argument), examined the interplay between Maine’s decision to eliminate the nonsectarian requirement for tuition assistance (following the Supreme Court’s decision in Carson v. Makin) and the state’s simultaneous expansion of nondiscrimination protections in the 2021 amendments. The court determined that some aspects of the lower court’s analysis warranted reversal, suggesting the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims presented serious questions going to the merits of their Free Exercise challenges.
Key Takeaways
- Religious schools may have viable First Amendment claims when states condition access to neutral public-funding programs on compliance with expanded nondiscrimination laws, even after those states have removed sectarian restrictions on the programs themselves.
- The timing of Maine’s 2021 amendments—expanding nondiscrimination protections while the Carson litigation was pending—may be relevant to First Amendment analysis of the rules’ application to religious institutions.
- The distinction between absolute prohibitions on religious discrimination in education and carve-outs for religious institutions in employment and housing provisions creates distinct constitutional questions for each rule.
- Preliminary injunction standards require courts to balance the strength of constitutional claims against the state’s interest in enforcing nondiscrimination laws, a balance the First Circuit found was not correctly struck in the district court’s analysis.
Why It Matters
This decision reflects the ongoing tension between religious liberty protections and nondiscrimination law in the wake of Carson v. Makin. The Supreme Court’s 2022 decision removed barriers to religious schools accessing neutral tuition-assistance programs, but states may still impose other conditions through nondiscrimination requirements. The First Circuit’s partial reversal signals that religious schools have plausible constitutional claims when those conditions substantially burden their religious missions, particularly regarding policies on sexual orientation, gender identity, and religious hiring and admission standards.
The case also illustrates a broader doctrinal debate: whether a state can simultaneously extend public benefits to religious institutions while imposing nondiscrimination conditions that conflict with those institutions’ religious beliefs. The court’s willingness to reverse the denial of preliminary relief suggests the First Circuit views this as a serious unresolved constitutional question warranting further development on the merits. The decision is also issued alongside the court’s opinion in the parallel Crosspoint Church appeal, demonstrating the circuit’s engagement with similar claims from multiple religious educational institutions.