Vermont family fights tuition aid denial over daughter’s Catholic education
Caroline MolloyA Vermont family filed a federal lawsuit Oct. 27 challenging state restrictions they say deny their daughter tuition assistance because she attends a Catholic school.
Carrie and Greg Bishop are challenging state and local officials on behalf of their daughter in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, according to an Oct. 28 press release from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represents them.
According to ADF, the lawsuit is one of several challenges the firm has brought against Vermont’s restrictions on religious schools’ access to public education benefits. The firm said Vermont barred religious schools from those benefits for decades before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in 2021 that the exclusion violated the First Amendment.
ADF said Act 73, enacted in 2025, again made religious schools ineligible for tuition assistance, prompting the Bishops’ new challenge.
ADF Legal Counsel Jake Reed criticized Vermont’s continued restrictions on religious families’ access to education benefits.
“Parents should be able to send their children to schools that are the best fit for them, and the First Amendment protects parents’ right to choose religious schools,” he said in the release. “Yet after decades and multiple court rulings protecting religious freedom, Vermont continues to discriminate against religious families and schools. Such unequal treatment violates the First Amendment, and government officials must be held accountable.”
