What happened
The First Circuit on Thursday partly revived St. Dominic Academy's challenge to Maine anti-discrimination rules for publicly funded private schools, ordering further proceedings that include a preliminary injunction against a religious-expression rule as applied to the Catholic school.
The panel otherwise affirmed the denial of preliminary relief, saying there was no case or controversy over an employment rule and that St. Dominic had not shown a likelihood of success against Maine Human Rights Act rules barring religious discrimination and sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.
The case sits at the intersection of Maine's tuition-assistance program and the Maine Human Rights Act. The opinion says the state's education anti-discrimination regime covers public schools and private schools approved for tuition purposes, meaning private schools that accept public funding can be subject to those provisions.
St. Dominic, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland and parents Keith and Valori Radonis sued Maine education and human rights officials for declaratory and injunctive relief. The dispute followed the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin, which held that Maine's former nonsectarian requirement for participating schools violated the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause.
On the sexual orientation and gender identity rule, the First Circuit said St. Dominic had not shown strict scrutiny should apply and reviewed the challenged rule under rational basis. The panel said combating sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination is a legitimate government interest and that imposing liability on publicly funded schools rationally advances that goal.
The court also declined to let St. Dominic press a parental-rights theory based on recent Supreme Court decisions addressing school policies on LGBTQ-related issues. The panel said no remaining party in the suit was a parent asserting that claim, and St. Dominic had not justified litigating on behalf of parents who were not parties.
But the panel said St. Dominic satisfied the remaining preliminary-injunction factors as to the religious-expression rule, emphasizing that even temporary loss of First Amendment freedoms constitutes irreparable injury and that Maine officials could not justify a religiously discriminatory provision as necessary to combat religious discrimination.
The First Circuit remanded for further proceedings, including timely entry of a preliminary injunction against the religious-expression rule as applied to St. Dominic. The court noted that it issued a companion opinion the same day in a similar Crosspoint Church appeal, with much of that case turning on the reasoning in St. Dominic.