St. Dominic Academy in Auburn. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal, file

A federal judge has denied a request for emergency relief in a case involving a Maine Catholic school and a Whitefield family who have argued that state education funds should be able to be used at religious schools.

U.S. District Judge John Woodcock ruled Thursday against the relief requested by St. Dominic Academy in Auburn, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, and Keith and Valori Radonis, Whitefield parents who have said they would like to be able to use state funds to send their children to St. Dominic’s because their town has no public high school.

The school, the diocese and the Radonises sued the commissioner of the Maine Department of Education and members of the Maine Human Rights Commission in June 2023, arguing that a program, which allows parents to access state tuition funds to send their children to approved private schools if there is no public school available or if they live in towns that have maintained school choice, discriminates against religious schools for their practices and teachings.

The state had previously argued that allowing public money to flow to private religious schools violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of government endorsement of religion.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Maine could not bar religious schools from participating in the tuition program, but before the court handed down its ruling, Maine lawmakers changed the state’s Human Rights Act to ensure that religious schools would have to abide by rules prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and allow equal religious expression by students of all religions in order to qualify for the state funding.

Under the law, schools would have to commit to non-discriminatory hiring and enrollment practices, allow students to express gender-identities different from those assigned at birth and allow students of religious beliefs different from those taught at the school an equal opportunity to pray and practice religion.

The Radonises and St. Dominic said in their lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, that the changes to the Human Rights Act make it impossible for religious schools to both participate in the program and adhere to and teach their religious beliefs, and strip the ability of families to use public money to send their children to schools that align with their beliefs.

They asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of provisions in the Maine Human Rights Act that conflict with their religious beliefs.

In the order issued Thursday, Woodcock rejected claims he said the defendants made arguing that a state court should decide the issue first and that it wasn’t ready to be tried because the issue of whether St. Dominic should accept public funds is “purely hypothetical.”

But he also rejected other arguments in favor of the injunction, including arguments from the plaintiffs that the new human rights law was enacted in a way that was “not neutral” and discriminatory towards religious schools and that the Human Rights Act “strips” the school of its religious hiring rights.

He said that the plaintiffs “have not carried their burden of showing a likelihood of success on their unconstitutional conditions claim” and that therefore the challenged provisions of the Human Rights Act are unlikely to cause “irreparable injury” if they remain enforced. But he said the plaintiffs also raise important questions.

“The Court recognizes that this case poses novel constitutional issues and … has attempted to frame its opinion as a prelude to a challenge to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for a more authoritative ruling,” Woodcock wrote.

Attorneys for St. Dominic, the diocese and the Radonises have already filed a notice that they intend to appeal to the First Circuit.

Spokespeople for the Maine Department of Education and Office of the Maine Attorney General did not respond to phone messages and emails late Saturday seeking comment on the case. An attorney for the plaintiffs also did not respond to a phone message or email late Saturday seeking a reaction to the order and information about the appeal.