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Supreme Court issues narrow ruling on funding church’s preschool playground  

On June 26, 2017, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer that the state of Missouri violated a church’s rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment by denying the church a state-funded grant to improve its preschool playground. The church, Trinity Lutheran, had applied for a grant to resurface its preschool playground, and Missouri denied the application because its state constitution prohibited using public money to support religious schools. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “[t]he State has pursued its preferred policy to the point of expressly denying a qualified religious entity a public benefit solely because of its religious character. Under our precedents, that goes too far.”

The Court’s decision has raised questions about its potential impact on school funding around the country. Although some private school choice supporters are celebrating the Court’s decision as a step toward vouchers for religious schools, this ruling is narrow and is unlikely by itself to have a broader impact on school funding. Footnote 3 from the ruling limits the scope of the case: “This case involves express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing. We do not address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination.” The Court’s ruling does not extend to policies like school vouchers under which funds might be used for religious purposes.

While this ruling itself is limited, there are likely to be broader challenges in the future, and this decision could create precedent for expanded rulings that require a state to provide funding to religious schools when it provides funding to private schools. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that the Court’s decision profoundly changes the relationship between religious institutions and the government “by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church. Its decision slights both our precedents and our history, and its reasoning weakens this country’s longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state beneficial to both.” The eventual impact of the Court’s ruling remains to be seen, but at least for now, the Court’s narrow ruling is unlikely to impact school funding issues in California.