Sotomayor accuses supreme court conservatives of dismantling church-state separation

Sonia Sotomayor wrote: ‘Today, the court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.’ Photograph: Reuters

The liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor has warned that the US supreme court is dismantling the wall between church and state, after the conservative majority ruled that the state of Maine cannot exclude religious schools from a tuition programme.

In a dissent to the ruling in Carson v Makin, released on Tuesday, Sotomayor wrote: “This court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the framers fought to build.