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The Locke Exception: What Trinity Lutheran Means For The Future Of State Blaine Amendments, Christopher Tyler Prosser

Pepperdine Law Review

At its core, this Article is about whether states have the discretion to discriminate against religious organizations by excluding them from generally available secular government aid programs. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Locke v. Davey, the federal courts have developed conflicting interpretations of whether the Court’s holding in Locke permits states to exclude religious organizations from generally available secular aid programs. However, the Court’s 2017 decision in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer has cast doubt on the ability of states to exclude religious organizations from such programs and seemingly restricts the Court’s prior decision in Locke …