In a series of recent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from discriminating against religion.
In particular, these cases, culminating in Carson v. Makin (2022), clarified that when the government establishes programs that extend benefits to private organizations to advance the common good, the government may neither exclude religious organizations from participating nor require them to secularize or refrain from spending money on religious conduct or content. Unfortunately, many hundreds of state and federal programs run afoul of this non-discrimination mandate. In partnership with the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic and the Orthodox Union’s TEACH Coalition, the Education Law Project has undertaken an ambitious research project that seeks to identify all state and federal programs that unconstitutionally discriminate against religious organizations or religious conduct.
