A group of Vermont high school students backed by a powerful conservative Christian legal organization is accusing the state of religious discrimination.
The unnamed students, backed by lawyers from the Alliance Defending Freedom, say they wanted to take college classes under the state’s dual-enrollment program but were excluded because they attend a Roman Catholic high school.
Eligible students can take college classes, and the state pays. However, the Vermont supreme court ruled in 1999 that using public money to pay tuition to private religious schools violates the state constitution’s religious-freedom clause.
