A Christian family filed a lawsuit in federal court against Vermont education officials challenging a recently enacted state law that excludes religious schools from receiving public education benefits.

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), parents Greg and Carrie Bishop and their high school-aged child argue the law’s eligibility requirements are structured in a way that every religious school in Vermont is disqualified from the state’s Town Tuition Program and Dual Enrollment Program. The lawsuit names Vermont Agency of Education Secretary Zoie Saunders, Vermont State Board of Education Chair Tammy Kolbe, and the Barstow Unified Union School District as defendants.

According to ADF, Vermont education officials have intentionally banned religious schools and families from these public educational benefits for decades. In 2021, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Vermont’s previous policies excluding religious schools from both the tuition and dual enrollment programs violated the First Amendment.

Since Vermont is sparsely populated, many families live in school districts that do not have a school. So, those districts pay the tuition for students to attend a public or private school through the Town Tuition Program. In addition, the Dual Enrollment Program allows high school students to take college courses at no cost, but eligibility is contingent on also being in a public school or receiving Town Tuition. However, the state’s legislature passed Act 73 in 2025 with new eligibility rules to receive Town Tuition that require qualifying schools to be in the student’s home or neighboring district; meet minimum class size requirements; and have had at least 25 percent of its enrollment comprised of publicly funded students during the 2023-2024 school year.

The complaint states the geographic, class size, and 25 percent requirements make compliance by religious schools that have more particular enrollment patterns difficult or impossible. The complaint alleges that every religious school loses eligibility under the law even though the statute never mentions religion.

The Bishops argue that Act 73 leaves religious families with an unconstitutional choice of either sending their children to a secular school to receive public funding or send them to a religious school and pay the cost out of pocket.

In 2022 after the U.S. Second Circuit ended Vermont’s previous religious discrimination, the U.S. Supreme Court in Carson v. Makin struck down a similar state-run tuition program in Maine for excluding religious schools. 

Vermont officials and Barstow Unified School District “have continued to deny families Town Tuition funding despite binding precedent holding that religious schools and families must be able to participate equally,” reads the complaint. “Because Act 73’s religious exclusion is tainted with religious animus, it is per se unconstitutional.”

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “States cannot exclude religious schools or families from a public benefit because they are religious. When a state makes a supposedly ‘neutral’ law that offers a public benefit program but excludes religious families or organizations, then that law has become discriminatory. The First Amendment cannot tolerate this exclusion.”