The Montana Legislature established a program to provide tuition assistance to parents who send their children to private schools. The program grants a tax credit to anyone who donates to certain organizations that in turn award scholarships to selected students attending such schools. When parents sought to use the scholarships at a religious school, the Montana Supreme Court struck down the entire scholarship program as inconsistent with the “no-aid” provision of the Montana State Constitution, which prohibits any aid to a school controlled by a “church, sect, or denomination.” The Supreme Court reversed holding the application of the “no-aid” provision discriminated against religious schools and the families whose children attended or hoped to attend them in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which “protects religious observers against unequal treatment” and against “laws that impose special disabilities on the basis of religious status.”

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