Liberty Justice Center files amicus brief challenging Vermont’s Act 73 on religious schools
Educational freedom for religious families in Vermont is at the center of a legal challenge, as the Liberty Justice Center announced July 2 that it has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The brief supports Alliance Defending Freedom’s federal challenge in Mid Vermont Christian Academy v. Saunders and urges the court to reverse a lower court decision that allowed the state to enforce Act 73.
According to the Liberty Justice Center, "Educational freedom is the cornerstone of a child’s future. Yet Vermont is currently using a legislative loophole to deny that freedom to religious families. To protect the constitutional rights of parents and students, the Liberty Justice Center’s PARENTS Initiative has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit supporting Alliance Defending Freedom’s federal challenge in Mid Vermont Christian Academy v. Saunders. The brief urges the Court to reverse a lower court decision and stop the state from enforcing 'Act 73,' a law that entrenches unconstitutional religious discrimination in Vermont’s education system."
For more than 150 years, Vermont’s "town tuitioning" system has allowed students in towns without public schools to use public tuition support to attend an approved school of their choice. After the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin, which held that states cannot exclude religious schools from such programs, the Vermont Legislature enacted Act 73. The law includes a "25 percent enrollment" threshold based on the 2023-2024 school year, a period when religious schools were largely excluded from full participation. The Liberty Justice Center said this effectively locks many religious schools out of Vermont’s tuitioning system going forward.
The Liberty Justice Center is also litigating its own challenge to Act 73 in Caspers v. State of Vermont, filed February 27, 2026. The outcome of the Mid Vermont Christian Academy case will have direct consequences for the families represented by the Liberty Justice Center in Caspers. "The Vermont government has all but expressly singled out religious schools and students for exclusion from a public benefit. This double standard not only violates the federal Constitution, but also Vermont’s own state Constitution," said Timothy R. Snowball, Senior Counsel for the Liberty Justice Center and lead for the PARENTS Initiative.
The PARENTS Initiative is a project of the Liberty Justice Center, focused on protecting the rights of parents to direct their children’s education. The organization said it works to ensure that educational funding follows the student and that families are not forced to choose between their faith and their child’s education. The Liberty Justice Center is a national nonprofit law firm known for its 2018 U.S. Supreme Court victory in Janus v. AFSCME and does not accept government funding or charge for its services, according to the organization.