Tag: religious

  • Nearly All State Funding for Missouri School Vouchers Used for Religious Schools – The 74

    Nearly All State Funding for Missouri School Vouchers Used for Religious Schools – The 74


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    State funding of private-school vouchers is primarily being used for students attending religious institutions, with nearly 98% of funding going toward Catholic, Christian, Jewish and Islamic schools.

    This year, state lawmakers passed a budget that included a request from Gov. Mike Kehoe to supply the state-run K-12 scholarship program, MOScholars, with $50 million of general revenue. Previously, the impact to the state’s bottom line was indirect, with 100% tax-deductible donations fueling the program.

    Donations are still part of MOScholars’ funding, but the state appropriation has more than doubled the number of scholarships available.

    During the 2024-25 school year, MOScholars awarded $15.2 million in scholarships.

    In August alone, the State Treasurer’s Office received invoices for scholarships totaling $15.6 million, according to documents obtained by The Independent under Missouri’s open records laws.

    The invoice process is unique to the direct state funding of the program. The nonprofits that administer scholarships, called educational assistance organizations, were the sole keepers of scholarship funds. But now, the State Treasurer’s Office holds scholarship money derived from general revenue in an account previously only used for program marketing and administration.

    The invoices contained data on which schools MOScholars students are attending and the scholarship amount.

    Of the 2,329 scholarships awarded in August, only 59 went to students in nonreligious schools.

    This number did not surprise Democratic lawmakers, who for years have warned that state revenue was going to be siphoned into religious schools.

    “We are simply subsidizing, with tax dollars, parents who would already choose to send their kids to a private school,” state Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Kansas City Democrat, told The Independent. “And now we are using public dollars to pay for schools that are not transparent whatsoever in choosing who to educate and who not.”

    Some schools have been criticized for admission requirements that push a moral standard.

    Christian Fellowship School in Columbia, which received scholarships for 63 MOScholars students in August, requires “at least one parent of enrolled students professes faith in Christ and agrees with the admission policies and the philosophy and doctrinal statements of the school,” according to its handbook. 

    These statements include disapproval of homosexuality.

    “The school reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to refuse admission of an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student,” the handbook continues.

    With around 430 K-12 students enrolled at Christian Fellowship School, according to National Center for Educational Statistics survey data, MOScholars makes up a sizable portion of its funding. But it is not the only school with a large number of scholarship recipients.

    Torah Prep School in St. Louis had 229 K-12 students during the 2023-24 school year. And in August, 197 MOScholars students received funding to attend the school. Torah Prep did not respond to a request for comment.

    The high number of students attending religious schools with MOScholars funding is somewhat incidental, somewhat by design.

    The MOScholars program allows its six educational assistance organizations to choose what scholarships they are willing to support. 

    Religious organizations stepped into the role to help connect congregants with affiliated schools. Only two of the six educational assistance organizations partner with schools unaffiliated with religion.

    The Catholic dioceses of Kansas City-St. Joseph and Springfield-Cape Girardeau run the educational assistance organization Bright Futures Fund, which administered nearly half of the scholarships awarded in August.

    The educational assistance organization Agudath Israel of Missouri focuses on Jewish education, partnering with four Jewish day schools.

    The organization’s director Hillel Anton told The Independent that students are attracted to the program for more than just religious reasons.

    “(Parents’) first and foremost concern is where their child is going to be able to be in the best learning environment,” Anton said. “And you may have a faith-based school that is fantastic and is able to provide that.”

    The demand for the program has long exceeded funding availability. Going into August, organizations had waitlists of students eligible for a scholarship but without funding secured.

    Agudath Israel of Missouri couldn’t guarantee scholarships for all of the returning students, Anton said, until the state funding was official.

    “Because a lot of the funding is done towards the end of the year… we had everyone on a wait list,” he said. “Because we didn’t know necessarily how much funding we were going to have, we weren’t awarding anyone (the funding).”

    Because the program was previously powered by 100% tax-deductible donations, the majority of funds poured in around December. But families need the money months sooner, with tuition due at the start of the school year.

    Some educational assistance organizations prefunded scholarships, dipping into their savings to front expenses in the fall. Others had schools that would accept students and wait for payment.

    The funding from the state, though, has resolved the backlog and allowed organizations to give scholarships to everyone on their wait list.

    “Everyone who qualified for a scholarship this year received one,” Ashlie Hand, Bright Futures Fund’s director of communications, told The Independent.

    Bright Futures Fund nearly doubled the number of students it serves, from 1,050 to 1,909.

    Agudath Israel of Missouri is growing, too. The new funding helped the organization expand from 175 scholarships last year to 277 this year.

    Some expect the state funding to continue next year to support this year’s windfall of scholarships. State Treasurer Vivek Malek told The Independent in May that if donations fall short, he will request state funds to support the new students through graduation.

    Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].


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  • California Schools Brace for Fallout from SCOTUS Decision on Religious Rights – The 74

    California Schools Brace for Fallout from SCOTUS Decision on Religious Rights – The 74

    Two months after the U.S. Supreme Court granted public school parents the right to withdraw their children from materials and discussions on LGBTQ+ issues and other subjects that conflict with their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” conservative leaders in California are predicting schools will be swamped with opt-out demands. 

    That hasn’t happened yet, but attorneys agree that this latest escalation of the culture wars will likely cause turmoil, confusion, and years of litigation, largely because the court offered no guidance on how opt-out requests should be handled, how religious belief claims can or should be verified, and how schools should handle potential logistical issues.

    “There is a lot of trepidation about how to handle this issue in a way that is legally compliant and doesn’t trigger a backlash from one side of the issue or the other,” Troy Flint, a spokesperson for the California School Boards Association, told EdSource via email Saturday night.

    “Superintendents have concerns about how to make a fact-specific determination regarding parent requests, and we have heard of districts getting threats of litigation from both sides,” he said.

    LGBTQ+ advocates and defenders of the state’s progressive school standards are threatening discrimination lawsuits if opt-outs are granted, Flint said. Parents are threatening to sue if they aren’t granted immediately.

    In most districts, he added, leaders “are hesitant to address this publicly for fear of attracting more scrutiny and making the issue even more difficult to manage.”

    A leading academic on education law said that while the Supreme Court decision was based on parental objections to LGBTQ+ books and lessons, the religious opt-outs are likely to have a broader reach.

    “It is deeply misguided for people to believe that this case is only about LGBTQ+ and equality,” Yale Law School professor Justin Driver told EdSource. The decision “sweeps, given the prevalence of deeply felt religious objections, to lots of material,” he said.

    It could “affect everything from reading to science, to literature to history. It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the decision,” Driver said. “Some people think Bert and Ernie are gay. Is ‘Sesame Street’ now suspect?”

    California, for instance, requires students to learn the history of gay people fighting for civil rights and the story of the country’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk. The San Francisco supervisor was assassinated in 1978 and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Barack Obama.

    Flint said that parents “in at least one district have hinted at trying to expand the opt-out requests to other types of instructional materials.” He did not identify those materials.

    Meanwhile, as school administrators ponder their next steps, firebrand social conservatives are seizing the moment that the nation’s highest court created.

    “There should be opt-outs. There are things that go against what God laid down,” pastor Angelo Frazier, of Bakersfield’s RiverLakes Community Church, said of what’s taught in California schools. 

    “It’s not education. It’s ‘You can touch me here.’ It’s very suggestive and inappropriate.” He said the ruling was a relief to frustrated parents in his congregation. “It gives them breathing room.”

    The leader of a Fresno-based Christian group, long involved in parental rights advocacy, said the state is no longer in charge of what children learn in school.

    The ruling shows that “parents are the ultimate determination of whose values get taught to the child,” said Greg Burt of the California Family Council. “We’re now in charge of deciding what we think is good and what we think is not good.”

    But as opt-outs begin to play out across California’s more than 10,000 public schools as the 2025-26 academic year opens, the only certainty from the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, is that uncertainties abound — and may for years.

    They include:

    • Can or should parents file blanket opt-out requests stating they want their child removed from any and all instruction about LGBTQ+ topics, and leave school personnel to sort it out? Or should schools ask parents to review reading lists — often available online — and let parents flag those items to which they object? 
    • What do school leaders do with students whose parents opt them out of a class? Their class time still needs to be used for instruction. Where do they go?
    • Who watches or instructs the youngest of removed students, who can’t be left unsupervised? Some of the books cited in the Supreme Court case, including ones about a child’s favorite uncle marrying a man and a puppy getting lost at a Pride parade, are used in kindergarten and even transitional kindergarten classes.
    • Will school districts need to budget money to defend lawsuits from parents whose opt-out requests may be denied? 
    • Can parents even attempt to opt out their child from exposure to an LGBTQ+ teacher, or a teacher who displays a Pride flag in a classroom?

    Lawyers and academics interviewed for this story said that Justice Samuel Alito’s decision, joined by the court’s five other conservatives, offered little guidance on how opt-outs should work.  

    Mahmoud v. Taylor happened because the Montgomery County schools in suburban Maryland created an opt-out program to appease parents who objected to the teaching of LGBTQ+ materials on religious grounds. But the program ended in less than a year. Alito noted in his decision that school officials found that “individual principals and teachers could not accommodate the growing number of opt-out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.” Parents then sued.

    Focusing largely on principles of religious freedom, Alito’s decision doesn’t specifically address how opt-outs might work given the Maryland situation, or how claims of a sincerely held religious belief might be evaluated. 

    The high court has long recognized the rights of parents to “direct the religious upbringing of their children,” he wrote, a principle at the case’s core.

    But in a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonja Sotomayor predicted opt-outs would cause “chaos for this nation’s public schools.”

    Giving parents the chance to opt out of all lessons and story times that conflict with their beliefs “will impose impossible administrative burdens,” Sotomayor wrote. It threatens the very essence of public education.

     “The reverberations of the court’s error will be felt, I fear, for generations.”

    Opting out in California

    Conservative groups in California opposed to LGBTQ+ themed teaching materials are generating letters and emails to school districts for parents to use to demand that school leaders proactively remove children from classes where there might be any mention of gay or transgender people, same-sex marriage and other related topics.

    A nonprofit Riverside County law firm, Advocates for Faith & Freedom, created one such letter, calling for children to be removed from any teaching involving “gender identity, the use of pronouns inconsistent with biological sex, sexual activity or intercourse of any kind, sexual orientation, or any LGBTQ+ topics” so parents can raise children “in the fear and knowledge of the Lord.”

    The letter gives principals 10 calendar days to respond in writing. Lack of a response “will be considered a denial” that will cause parents to “proceed accordingly.”  

    Erin Mersino, an attorney at the firm, said via email, “responses were just starting to come in,” and that it was too soon to discuss the letter’s effectiveness. Other groups are circulating at least four similar opt-out templates or email forms.  

    The 10-day response demand in the nonprofit’s letter “is insufficient in my opinion,” said Mark Bresee, a La Jolla attorney specializing in education law.

    Bresee also questioned if “a blanket, year-long ‘opt-out’ demand” is consistent with Alito’s decision, noting that the justice wrote that the “religious development of a child will always be fact-intensive. It will depend on the specific religious beliefs and practices asserted, as well as the specific nature of the educational requirement or curricular feature at issue.”

    It’s unclear how far and fast those letters are circulating. Some school officials said they have received a few opt-out notices.

    Conservative activist Brenda Lebsack, a Santa Ana Unified School District board member, said mass opt-out requests are unlikely to come until school districts themselves notify parents of the new right the court granted. “Opt-out forms should really be coming from the schools because if you’re getting opt-out forms from all these different law firms, and they’re all different, that could get really confusing,” she said. 

    At the Manteca Unified School District in San Joaquin County, Assistant Superintendent Victoria Brunn said late last week that only one “opt-out request has been received so far. She said the parents who made it were told it would be granted. 

    A spokesperson for the Turlock Unified School District in Stanislaus County said it had received a single inquiry about the opt-out process and created a standard form for requests, but that no requests had been received. Parents can either use the form or email a teacher, citing “specific instructional content” a student should not receive, according to a copy provided to EdSource.

    “Teachers can also provide notice of upcoming curriculum,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.

    At the Hope Elementary School District in Santa Barbara County, Superintendent Anne Hubbard created an opt-out form. As of Friday, it had been used once to opt out two children in the same family, she said. 

    Last week, the board of the 85-student Howell Mountain Elementary School District in Napa County canceled plans to create an opt-out form after community objections.

    “Howell Mountain Elementary respects and values the LGBTQ+ community. We will not be adopting any type of opt-out form that specifically targets LGBTQ+ curriculum,” Superintendent Joshua Munoz said in a statement. Instead, the district will remind parents annually that the right to opt out exists, but will not cite any specific curriculum.

    The Press Democrat reported that among those who spoke to the board was a St. Helena High School junior who’d attended Howell Mountain.

    “When I was in seventh grade, I realized that I liked girls,” she said. “In school, the times that we were taught about LGBTQ+ people would remind me that I was not alone. I was not a freak or an alien. I was just me. And I could still do anything I wanted in my life.”

    In San Francisco, Mawan Omar, the parent of a sixth grader, told EdSource he intends to opt his son out of LGBTQ+ materials because the teaching contradicts his family’s Muslim faith.  

    Omar said his son, Hezma, objected on his own to an LGBTQ+ lesson in elementary school because it was contrary to what he had learned from the Holy Quran. “He just didn’t want to be around it because he knows our religion,” Omar said. After what he described as a dispute with the school’s principal, it was agreed informally that Hezma would be allowed to leave any classes involving similar materials.  

    Now, Alito’s decision, Omar said, is gratifying. “We knew all along we were right.”

    But Lebsack, who focuses on transgender issues and has formed an interfaith coalition primarily around them, said Alito’s decision isn’t enough.

    “I think Mahmoud versus Taylor is throwing us crumbs,” she said in an interview. “I mean, I’m grateful for it, but it needs to go much further than that.”

    Lebsack, a special education teacher and former Orange County probation officer, claimed the California Department of Education is ripe to be sued under the First and 14th amendments for “compelling public school students to accept and affirm extremist ideologies of unlimited gender identities” and for “bringing extremist forced teachings into K-12 public education.”

    Asked to respond to Lebsack’s assertion, a spokesperson for the state Education Department directed a reporter to guidance posted online about Alito’s decision. It states, in part, “The California Department of Education and California law continue to promote a safe, fair, and welcoming learning environment in all schools. It is important to note that Mahmoud does not invalidate or preempt California’s strong protections for LGBTQ+ youth from discrimination, harassment, and bullying.” 

    The goal: Banning books?

    Other conservatives said they see a path where Alito’s decision could lead to the removal of books and teaching they oppose by overwhelming schools with opt-outs to the point where the best option is to remove the materials.

    “If there are so many people who want to opt out of this curriculum, maybe we should stop teaching it,” said Julie Hamill, an attorney and president of the California Justice Center. School leaders, she said, should be reflecting on whether they are “doing something wrong as a district and educational entity. Those are questions that are not being asked right now. It’s very obvious that’s what needs to happen.”

    Sonja Shaw, a Chino Valley Unified School District board member running for state superintendent of public instruction in next year’s election, said she wants opt-outs to “overtax the system to where they just give up, and they stop teaching this stuff.”

    If so many opt-outs were filed that books are removed from curricula, that would help, said Burt of the California Family Council, which has urged parents to flood districts with opt-outs. “We’re advocating for good books in school, and we think these are bad books, so we’re not going to be sad if we see them go.”

    But an anti-censorship advocate said that would amount to book banning by a different name. 

    “I’m not at all surprised that this is their plan of attack,” Tasslyn Magnusson, senior adviser to the Freedom to Read team at PEN America, an anti-censorship group, said of conservative activists. “These are books about families. These are books about how we experience the world, and they’re beautiful and well written,” she said. “Remember that it’s important for kids to have a variety of materials in front of them that resonate with their lives and their experiences.”

    Another impact of the opt-outs will be how LGBTQ+ students and students from families with LGBTQ+ members will react when classmates leave and when teaching materials reflecting their lives are presented.

    That could make “a child feel they’re not only different, but that they’re not accepted or that they should be ashamed of the family that they have,” said Jorge Reyes Salinas,  a spokesperson for Equality California, a civil rights group. Although the opt-outs promise to be disruptive, he said, they won’t end the state’s use of an inclusive curriculum. “We’re talking about a very small population of parents that are ignorant and full of hate.”

    The presidents of California’s two largest teachers unions both said educators are not going to fold under pressure created by the high court’s decision.

    “The role of the public school is to help students develop the critical thinking skills and knowledge necessary to engage in a pluralistic democracy,” said Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers. “We cannot have individuals dictating what is the good of the public. It’s also important that our public schools avoid over-compliance and refuse to capitulate to the weaponization of this decision.”

    David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said that teachers “will obviously follow the law, but we want to make it clear to our members that there are other laws in California around kids’ ability to learn about their own identity, cultures, or all kinds of identities. We’re going to still honor kids’ ability to learn about their own identity and all kinds of identities.”

    Goldberg also said it would be a mistake for school administrators to place the burden of opt-outs on teachers. “Teachers are overwhelmed already, just getting through the curriculum,” he said. Opt-outs are “a compliance thing that districts are going to need to figure out.”

    The Scopes Monkey Trial

    The country has a long history of science clashing with religion.

    Driver, the Yale law professor, noted that in a 1987 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned a lower court that ruled fundamentalist Christians could remove their children from public school lessons that depicted women working outside the home, which they argued conflicted with their religious beliefs. 

    Now, following Alito’s decision in the Maryland case, the losing argument in that case could be successful, Driver said. “It seems to me the Mahmoud versus Taylor decision empowered these sorts of objections to potentially carry the day.”

    Alito’s decision also came 100 years after the landmark court case on the teaching of evolution in public schools — the epic clash of science versus religion known as the Scopes Monkey Trial that pitted legendary lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan against each other. 

    Jennings, hired to prosecute a high school biology teacher, John Scopes, for teaching evolution against state law, won. But Tennessee’s Supreme Court later overturned Scopes’ conviction, ruling that a state law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools was unconstitutional.

    But it didn’t end the debate over teaching science in the face of religious beliefs, said Pepperdine University law and history professor Edward Larson, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the trial. When it ended, “school districts all over the country and some states banned the teaching of the theory of human evolution,” he said.

    Even when religious objections were later banned, “a series of state laws and local actions calling for balanced treatment of either teaching creation science, along with evolution, or later intelligent design” followed, Larson said. Several states, including Alabama, require disclaimers in biology books stating evolution “is just a theory,” he said.

    “The issue of evolution in public schools remains a flash point,” Larson said. “It has been for a hundred years, it still is today.”

    As the Alito decision plays out in the coming years, Larson said, “Schools may want to force people to provide all sorts of evidence” to prove their sincerely held religious beliefs. “But I’m thinking that most won’t feel it’s worth their time to get too engaged,” he added. 

    “That’s just inviting trouble.” 


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  • Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Religious Colleges in Minn.

    Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Religious Colleges in Minn.

    Religious colleges that require students to sign a faith statement cannot be shut out of a Minnesota program that funds the dual enrollment of high school students in the state’s public and private postsecondary institutions, a federal judge ruled Friday.

    U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel’s ruling overturns a Minnesota law prohibiting Christian colleges that participate in the state’s 40-year-old Postsecondary Enrollment Options program from forcing students to pass a religious test. The state Education Department and LGBTQ+ advocates had sought such legislation for years on the grounds that faith statements discriminate against students who are not Christian, straight or cisgender. It finally passed in 2023, under a Democratic State Legislature.

    The families of several high school students seeking to earn credits at two Christian institutions in the state, Crown College and the University of Northwestern, then sued, arguing that the law violated their First Amendment right to religious freedom. The ban on faith statements was suspended while the legal battle played out.

    “This dispute requires the court to venture into the delicate constitutional interplay of religion and publicly-funded education,” Judge Brasel said in her 70-page ruling. “In doing so, the court heeds the Supreme Court’s instruction that the First Amendment gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.”

    Brasel noted in her ruling that the two Christian colleges have received nearly $40 million to cover the costs of the PSEO program since the 2017–18 academic year; she wrote that the University of Northwestern admits about 70 percent of dual-enrollment applicants. Over all, some 60,000 high school students have benefited from PSEO, The Minneapolis Star Tribune noted.

    The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented the plaintiffs, applauded the decision.

    “Minnesota tried to cut off educational opportunities to thousands of high schoolers simply for their faith. That’s not just unlawful—it’s shameful,” said Becket senior counsel Diana Thomson, according to the Associated Press. “This ruling is a win for families who won’t be strong-armed into abandoning their beliefs, and a sharp warning to politicians who target them.”

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  • Oklahoma religious charter remains blocked in SCOTUS split

    Oklahoma religious charter remains blocked in SCOTUS split

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    The nation’s first religious public charter school will not be able to open its doors in Oklahoma after a 4-4 split in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday morning upheld the state supreme court’s ruling that blocked the school.

    The high court did not issue written opinions in the case.

    In its June 2024 ruling in St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, a six-justice majority of the Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with state Attorney General Genter Drummond, writing that the virtual public charter school’s creation would violate the Oklahoma Constitution and the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. St. Isidore was originally scheduled to open for the 2024-25 school year.

    “Enforcing the St. Isidore Contract would create a slippery slope and what the framers’ warned against — the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention,” the Oklahoma court’s majority wrote in the decision.

    If the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in favor of St. Isidore, the high-profile religious liberty case could have opened the door for a wave of other publicly funded religious schools. The split decision, however, leaves no national precedent on the question of whether religious schools can participate in public charter school programs without violating the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case.

    St. Isidore is “disappointed” that the decision to block the school’s opening was upheld “without explanation” from the U.S. Supreme Court, said Archbishop of Oklahoma City Rev. Paul Coakley and Bishop of Tulsa Rev. David Konderla, in a joint statement Thursday.

    Given this latest ruling, Coakley and Konderla said they are exploring alternative options to offer a virtual Catholic education “to all persons” in Oklahoma and remain committed to parental choice in education.

    The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, which initially approved St. Isidore’s contract in October 2023, will respect the Supreme Court’s authority following its split decision to uphold the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling, said the board’s Executive Director Rebecca Wilkinson, in a Thursday statement.

    “The split decision of the court affirms this was indeed a complicated matter with a wide spectrum of views on the appropriate relationship between education, public funding, and religious institutions in our state and country,” Wilkinson said. “The Statewide Charter School Board remains committed to upholding our constitutional responsibilities and the highest standards of transparency and excellence. We will move forward in that vein, ensuring our policies and practices reflect both the rule of law and commitment to all students.”

    Drummond said in a Thursday statement that the Supreme Court’s decision is a “resounding victory for religious liberty and for the foundational principles that have guided our nation since its founding.”

    “I have always maintained that we must faithfully uphold the Constitution, even when it requires us to make difficult decisions,” Drummond said. “I will continue upholding the law, protecting our Christian values, and defending religious liberty — regardless of how difficult the battle may be.”

    Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters spoke out against the Supreme Court’s move, adding in a Thursday statement that he will always oppose “religious discrimination” and that all children in Oklahoma should be free to choose the best school to attend, whether that’s “religious or otherwise.”

    “Allowing the exclusion of religious schools from our charter school program in the name of 19th century religious bigotry is wrong,” Walters said in the statement sent by First Liberty Institute, a nonprofit law firm focused on First Amendment cases on religion.

    Still, it seems likely the issues involving the First Amendment’s religious clauses will eventually return to the U.S. Supreme Court, “perhaps in a case better suited for resolution,” said Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, a national conservative think tank.

    While it may not be the last time the Supreme Court takes on a case over religious charter schools, “today’s outcome offers clarity for families and educators,” said Starlee Coleman, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, in a statement.

    About 8.1% of all public schools are charters. These schools serve 3.7 million enrolled students, of whom two-thirds are from low-income, Black or Latino communities, according to NAPCS.

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  • As colleges close, small religious campuses in rural states are among the most imperiled

    As colleges close, small religious campuses in rural states are among the most imperiled

    DAVENPORT, Iowa — The Catholic prayer for the faithful echoed off the limestone walls and marble floor of the high-ceilinged chapel.

    It implored God to comfort the poor and the hungry. The sick and the suffering. The anxious and the afraid.

    Then it took an unexpected turn.

    “Lord, hear our prayer for St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy University,” the young voice said, “that the grace of the Holy Spirit may help us to follow God’s plan for our new partnership.”

    The speaker was talking about ongoing efforts to unite St. Ambrose University, where this weeknight Mass was being held, with fellow Catholic university Mount Mercy. Small religious schools in rural states are shutting down at an accelerating rate, a fate these two are attempting to avoid.

    Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report

    “Lord, hear our prayer,” responded the congregation of students in St. Ambrose-branded T-shirts and hoodies.

    The heads of both St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy, which is in Cedar Rapids, said they’ve watched as nearby religiously affiliated colleges, athletic rivals and institutions that employed their friends and former colleagues closed.

    With falling numbers of applicants to college — especially in the Midwest — “we just don’t have the demographics anymore,” said St. Ambrose President Amy Novak. Now, as fewer graduates emerge from high schools, combining forces is a way to forestall “the reality that we might all see in five or seven years,” Novak said.

    For many other small religiously affiliated institutions, time has already run out.

    See a list of religiously affiliated colleges that have closed, been merged, or announced that they are closing or merging.

    More than half of the 77 nonprofit colleges and universities that have closed or merged since 2020, or announced that they will close or merge, were religiously affiliated, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of news coverage and federal data. More than 30 that are still in business are on a U.S. Department of Education list of institutions considered “not financially responsible” because of comparatively low cash reserves and net income and high levels of debt.

    Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

    Some small, religiously affiliated institutions that are not on these lists are also showing signs of strain. Saint Augustine’s University in North Carolina, which is Episcopal, has 200 students, down from 1,100 two years ago, and has lost its accreditation. The 166-year-old St. Francis College in New York, which is Catholic, has sacked a quarter of its staff. Catholic Saint Louis University in Missouri laid off 20 employees, eliminated 130 unfilled faculty and staff positions and sold off its medical practice after running a deficit.

    Bluffton University in Ohio, which is Mennonite, is looking for a new partner after a planned merger fell through in February and the president resigned. Catholic St. Norbert College in Wisconsin is eliminating 11 majors and minors and 21 faculty positions. And Georgetown College in Kentucky averted closing only after an alumnus gave it $16 million, which, along with another $12 million in donations, was enough to pay off crippling debt that was costing the small Baptist institution $3 million a year just in interest.

    Other religiously affiliated schools are also taking steps to buttress themselves against demographic and financial challenges. Ursuline College in Ohio, for instance, which has fewer than 1,000 students, has agreed to merge with larger Gannon University, 95 miles away. Both are Catholic. Spring Hill College in Alabama and Rockhurst University in Missouri, both also Catholic, are teaming up so they can jointly offer more academic programs, though they will remain independent.

    More than a fifth of colleges and universities in the United States, or 849 out of 3,893, are religiously affiliated, according to the most recent figures from the National Center for Education Statistics.

    The threats to them are getting new attention. Presidents of 20 Catholic universities and colleges met in November in Chicago at a conference sponsored by DePaul University and held at the offices of the Deloitte consulting firm, which collected data to help them figure out solutions to the challenges they face.

    “The intent was to think about a blueprint for the future of Catholic higher education,” including more partnerships, shared services and other kinds of alliances, said Donna Carroll, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. “Survival of the fittest is not the strategy that will advance the common good of Catholic higher education. We have to work together.”

    The American Council on Education last year launched a Commission on Faith-Based Colleges and Universities, with leaders of what has since grown to 17 institutions including Pepperdine, Brigham Young and Yeshiva universities and the University of Notre Dame.

    The idea of the commission, which is scheduled to meet in Washington in June, is “to increase visibility for the important contributions of religious and faith-based colleges and universities and to foster collaboration” among them.

    Some religious colleges and universities are doing fine, and even posting enrollment gains — at least in part because of growing political divisions, campus protests and ideological attacks on secular institutions, said David Hoag, president of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.

    Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report

    Parents are “wanting to put their son or daughter at a safe place that’s going to have a biblical worldview or a way to look at challenges that’s not polarized,” Hoag said. “At our institutions, you’re not going to be seeing protests or things that are happening at many of these [other] universities and colleges. You’re going to see them rallying together, whether it’s for a sporting event or for a revival or baptisms.”

    Other trends also offer some hope to religiously affiliated colleges and universities. A long decline in the proportion of adults who consider themselves affiliated with a religion appears to have leveled off, the Pew Research Center finds. And while enrollment at parochial schools that feed graduates to Catholic universities fell more than 10 percent from 2017 to 2021, the most recent year for which the figure is available, the number of students at other kinds of religious primary and secondary schools is up.

    Even religiously affiliated institutions confronting the realities of falling enrollment and financial woes fill a critically important role, their advocates say. They often serve low-income students who are the first in their families to go to college and are reluctant to enroll at large public universities.

    Related: The number of 18-year-olds is about to drop sharply, packing a wallop for colleges — and the economy 

    Many are in rural areas where access to higher education is more limited than in urban and suburban places and is becoming less available still as public universities in rural states have merged or closed or cut dozens of majors.

    Attending a small rural, religiously affiliated institution “is, I think — especially for rural students — a great opportunity,” said Todd Olson, president of Mount Mercy, above the sound of trains crossing Cedar Rapids outside his window. “I know kids from very small towns around Iowa,” like the one where he grew up, Olson said. “This campus is a much more comfortable place for them.”

    Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report

    When Jacob Lange arrived at St. Ambrose from East Dubuque, Illinois, and attended a Mass on campus, “all of a sudden all these new people I had never met were kind of chatting with me and it was really kind of nice. It felt like I was kind of included and I didn’t really think I would be originally,” he said. “You figure, ‘I’m probably going to sit in the back and probably not talk to anyone all night,’ and then I showed up, and I walked out here and all of a sudden they’re, like, ‘Here, come join our group.’ ”

    His parents also liked that he decided to go to a Catholic university, Lange said. “You know, you go to one of these big schools with 25,000 kids, and you’re kind of worried about your kid — like, what kind of dumb things is he going to get up to?”

    Catholic universities in particular have a slightly higher four-year graduation rate than the national average, according to the Center for Catholic Studies at St. Mary’s University in Texas. Graduates have a stronger sense of community purpose, the center found in a survey. Alumni are 9 percentage points more likely to say they participate in civic activities.

    Related: See Hechinger’s list of all college closures since 2008

    More students at religiously affiliated than at secular institutions receive financial aid, the American Council on Education says. Three out of five get scholarships from the colleges themselves, compared to fewer than one in four at other kinds of schools. At both Mount Mercy and St. Ambrose, which have about 1,450 and 2,700 students, respectively, 100 percent get financial aid.

    But these benefits for students can be vulnerabilities for budgets, said Novak, at St. Ambrose.

    “We serve the poor. We educate the poor,” she said. “That is a risky financial proposition at the moment for small, regional institutions that are largely tuition-driven.”

    The threats to smaller religiously affiliated institutions in rural areas stem largely from the downturn in the already short supply of high school graduates choosing to enroll. The proportion of such students going straight to college has fallen even more sharply in many largely rural states.

    While they’re generous with their financial aid, religiously affiliated colleges are also generally more expensive than many other higher education institutions, at a time when many families are questioning the return on their investments in tuition. Median tuition and fees average $25,416 a year, according to the American Council on Education.

    Related: ‘Easy to just write us off’: Rural students’ choices shrink as colleges slash majors

    St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy, about 90 minutes away, are teaming up from positions of relative strength. Publicly available financial documents suggest that neither faces the immediate enrollment or financial crises that threaten many similar institutions. But their leaders say that they’re trying to fend off problems that could arise later. By joining forces, each can increase its number of programs while lowering administrative costs.

    Reaction among students and alumni has been mixed.

    Combining with St. Ambrose “was kind of nerve-racking at the beginning because it’s, like, ‘Oh, this is a lot of change,’ ” said Alaina Bina, a junior nursing major at Mount Mercy.

    She picked the university in the first place because she liked the small, hilly campus.

    “I came from a small town, so I didn’t really want to go bigger,” she said. “Even when I came here on a tour, people would say ‘Hi’ to each other. You just know everyone, and that’s kind of how it is in a small town, too.”

    Students were worried about what name would appear on their degrees (the degrees will still say “Mount Mercy”) and whether sports teams that once competed against each other would be merged. Novak and Olson promised to keep their athletics programs separate and even add a sport at Mount Mercy: football, beginning in 2026.

    Combining sports teams “would not be wise at all from a business perspective,” Olson said the two agreed, because they are “a powerful enrollment driver” for both schools.

    Credit: Mike Rundle for The Hechinger Report

    “Honestly, this was probably the biggest student concern,” said Nasharia Patterson, student government president at Mount Mercy, who was wearing a brace on her wrist from an awkward back tuck basket catch during cheer practice. Keeping the athletics teams “gives us a piece of Mount Mercy specifically to just hold on to.”

    Among alumni, meanwhile, “there’s mixed feelings” about what’s happening to their alma mater, said Sarah Watson, a leadership development consultant who graduated from Mount Mercy in 2008.

    Still, she said, “I know the great challenges that higher ed is facing right now. It’s not just Mount Mercy. It’s not just St. Ambrose. It’s the bigger schools, too. Enrollment numbers have dropped. The desire to go to a traditional four-year college is just not quite what it used to be.”

    For Mount Mercy, which was founded by an order of nuns in 1928, Watson said, “If we don’t do this, what’s the alternative? We want to be around for another hundred years.”

    After all, said Novak, the St. Ambrose president, “to watch universities close across the heartland because we can’t make it work will leave our communities fallow.”

    Carroll, of the Catholic colleges and university association, said that many other religiously affiliated institutions are closely watching what’s happening at St. Ambrose and Mount Mercy.

    “It’s a leap of faith,” she said. “And who better to take a leap of faith than a Catholic institution?”

    Religiously affiliated colleges that have closed or merged, or announced that they will merge, since 2020

    Alderson Broaddus University, West Virginia, Baptist

    Alliance University, New York, Christian

    Ancilla College, Indiana, Catholic

    B. H. Carroll Theological Institute, Texas, Baptist

    Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama, Methodist

    Bloomfield College, New Jersey, Presbyterian

    Cabrini University, Pennsylvania, Catholic

    Cardinal Stritch University, Wisconsin, Catholic

    Chatfield College, Ohio, Catholic

    Clarks Summit University, Pennsylvania, Baptist

    College of Saint Rose, New York, Catholic

    Compass College of Film & Media, Michigan, Christian

    Concordia College New York, Lutheran

    Concordia University, Oregon, Lutheran

    Eastern Nazarene College, Massachusetts, Christian

    Finlandia University, Michigan, Lutheran

    Fontbonne University, Missouri, Catholic

    Holy Family College, Wisconsin, Catholic

    Holy Names University, California, Catholic

    Iowa Wesleyan University, Iowa, Methodist

    Judson College, Alabama, Baptist

    Limestone University, South Carolina, Christian

    Lincoln Christian University, Illinois, Christian

    MacMurray College, Illinois, Methodist

    Magdalen College, New Hampshire, Catholic

    Martin Methodist College, Tennessee, Methodist

    Marymount California University, California, Catholic

    Mount Mercy University, Iowa, Catholic

    Multnomah University, Oregon, Christian

    Nebraska Christian College, Nebraska, Christian

    Notre Dame College of Ohio, Catholic

    Ohio Valley University, West Virginia, Christian

    Presentation College, South Dakota, Catholic

    Rosemont College, Pennsylvania, Catholic

    St. Louis Christian College, Missouri, Christian

    St. Augustine College, Illinois, Episcopal

    St. John’s University Staten Island campus, New York, Catholic

    University of Saint Katherine, California, Orthodox Christian

    Ursuline College, Ohio, Catholic

    Wave Leadership College, Virginia, Christian

    Wesley College, Delaware, Methodist

    SOURCE: Hechinger Report analysis of news coverage and federal data.

    Back to story

    Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556 or [email protected].

    This story about religious colleges and universities was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter. Listen to our higher education podcast.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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  • Supreme Court Must Not Undermine Public Education in Religious Charter Case – The 74

    Supreme Court Must Not Undermine Public Education in Religious Charter Case – The 74


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    Last week, the Supreme Court held oral arguments in a case that could undermine public education across America. The question the court is looking to answer is whether a religious institution may run a publicly funded charter school — a move that would threaten not only the separation of church and state, but the right of every student to access free, high-quality learning.

    In 2023, Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, an action that would make it the nation’s first-ever religious charter school. It would be governed by Catholic religious doctrine in its syllabus, operations and employment practices. It would use taxpayer dollars to pay for religious instruction. And it could turn away students and staff if their faith or identity conflict with Catholic beliefs. 

    Here’s the issue: Charter schools were created to be public schools. They are open to all students, from every background, tradition and faith community. They are publicly funded and tuition-free. And they are secular. 

    That’s not an arbitrary distinction – it’s a constitutional one, grounded in the law and embedded in charter schools’ very design. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause bars the government from promoting or endorsing any religion through public spaces or institutions. This foundational rule has ensured that students of all backgrounds can access public schools. It does not stifle religious expression — the Constitution fully protects this freedom, and religious education is available in other venues. Personally, I was, in fact, educated at Jesuit Catholic schools for my entire academic career. 

    Parochial education has long been an accepted and important part of the education ecosystem, serving a variety of students and often filling an important need. Religiously affiliated schools have a long history of educating and caring for children who are new to this country and underserved, and supporting families who are overlooked. But promoting the exclusive teachings of a specific religion with public funds in a public school violates a clear constitutional principle. 

    The issue isn’t only a legal matter; it’s about the character of public education itself. Muddying the boundary between public and religious institutions would undercut a fundamental commitment made by the nation’s public charter schools: that they are accessible to every student. It would undermine legal protections that keep public services available to the public. 

    Rather than creating more opportunities for America’s students, it would constrict opportunities for a high-quality education, especially in states that are hostile toward charters or alternative public school models. Legislative bodies could seek to eliminate funding for all unique school types if the court decision forced them to fund religious schools operating with public dollars. This would curtail or dismantle strong independent schools, 30-year-old public charter schools and schools with unique programs designed for special populations.

    As executive director of the DC Charter School Alliance, and a long-time public charter school advocate, I’ve seen the importance of public charter schools firsthand. Here in the District of Columbia, charter schools serve nearly half of the public school students in the city. Outstanding educators from all walks of life teach a wide range of subjects with enthusiasm and expertise to prepare young people for success. Our students bring to the classroom an incredible range of experiences, including faith traditions. And every student, family and faculty member is welcome. D.C.’s charter schools reflect a core American value: the promise of a high-quality public education for all. 

    The justices of the Supreme Court face a clear and critical choice: They can bolster that promise, or they can tear it down. If the court allows a religious school to operate with public funds, there is no doubt that it will open the floodgates to other proposals across the country. Taxpayers could be forced to foot the bill for countless new and converted schools, draining resources from an already financially strapped education system. True public charter schools — the ones committed to high standards, positive results and opportunity for all — could bear the cost. And the students who rely on them could suffer. 

    Public education is one of America’s most vital institutions. It offers all children, no matter their background or beliefs, access to free, high-quality learning. Charter schools play an essential role in making that promise real. But allowing a religious school to operate with public funds turns public education into something much more restrictive, dismantling its very foundation.

    The court must reaffirm this indisputable truth: Public schools should remain public — and open to all. 


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  • Religious Freedom as a Defense for DEI?

    Religious Freedom as a Defense for DEI?

    Last month, amid a Trump administration broadside against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, government officials took aim at Georgetown University’s law school.

    “It has come to my attention reliably that Georgetown Law School continues to teach DEI. This is unacceptable,” interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin wrote in a letter.

    Martin announced he had launched “an inquiry into this” and asked Georgetown law school officials, “If DEI is found in your courses or teaching in anyway [sic], will you move swiftly to remove it?” He added that students and others “affiliated with a law school or university” that “continues to teach and utilize DEI” would not be hired “for our fellows program, our summer internship” or other jobs.

    Martin’s letter, which was sent on Feb. 17 and quickly became public, prompted shock and outrage, with many observers noting that it was a clear affront to First Amendment rights at Georgetown. It also drew a quick—and pointed—response from the law school.

    Georgetown Law dean William Treanor invoked both the First Amendment and the tenets of Catholic faith in his March 6 response to Martin, noting that the government cannot control curriculum.

    “As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, Georgetown University was founded on the principle that serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures, and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical, and spiritual understanding,” Treanor wrote in a response that soon spread online. “For us at Georgetown, this principle is a moral and educational imperative. It is a principle that defines our mission as a Catholic and Jesuit institution.”

    Given that multiple institutions have already complied with Trump directives to unwind DEI initiatives, despite numerous outstanding legal questions, Treanor’s response stood out as an uncommon example of a university holding its ground. It also raised a unique question for religiously affiliated institutions: Does religious freedom offer a defense against Trump’s attacks on DEI efforts?

    A Faith-Based Defense for DEI

    It might. For decades, faith-based colleges and universities have cited religious freedom in decrying federal meddling in their policies and practices.

    Some institutions have argued in drawn-out legal battles that they’re exempt from federal rules that chafe against tenets of their faith, such as strictures related to gender and sexual orientation. They’ve similarly asserted in court that whom they hire or fire is within their theological purview. Such legal cases often revolve around the concept of church autonomy doctrine, a legal principle protecting the rights of religious institutions to govern themselves—including their internal operations.

    Now, as Treanor’s letter suggests, the same argument could prove a powerful tool for pushing back against the onslaught of anti-DEI directives coming out of the Trump administration. Religious institutions that view diversity, equity and inclusion as core to their faith missions arguably have a layer of legal protection to defend DEI initiatives that their secular peers do not. They could also ostensibly challenge anti-DEI orders in court on religious freedom grounds at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court has displayed a warm disposition toward religious issues.

    “It’s not an unreasonable argument,” said Charles Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and research professor of law at the University of Dayton, a Catholic—but not Jesuit—institution in Ohio. He emphasized that he was speaking on his own behalf, not the university’s.

    Church autonomy doctrine is based on the idea that “we have the right to run our institutions consistent with what our beliefs are, and we don’t need people from the outside coming out telling us what we believe,” he added. Most DEI efforts are “certainly consistent with Christian values … to help the underprivileged, the downtrodden, the most in need.”

    Jesuit colleges and universities, such as Georgetown, seem the most likely to consider venturing into this legal battleground, given the religious order’s emphasis on social causes. Many Catholic colleges—and Jesuit institutions in particular—were founded to serve burgeoning Catholic immigrant populations. In recent years, Jesuits founded several new institutions designed explicitly to support low-income students; those colleges, like Arrupe College in Chicago, have emphasized efforts to enroll and retain students from underrepresented groups.

    But even if some Jesuit institutions do view DEI as central to their faith, it remains to be seen whether they’re willing to call on their religious identities to fight for it.

    What Religious Colleges Said

    They’re certainly not keen to do so publicly.

    Of the 27 Jesuit universities that Inside Higher Ed contacted for this story, only two responded by deadline. Fordham University declined to comment, while Seattle University sent a link to a past statement from President Eduardo M. Peñalver that noted the institution “does not plan to make any immediate operational changes in response to [a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter] and will await new regulations or formal administrative guidance.” He added that resulting guidance will be studied carefully and the university will “either comply in a manner consistent with our Jesuit Catholic values … or—if that proves impossible—consider other legal avenues.”

    The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities is also treading carefully.

    “The member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities share a mission based on long-standing Catholic religious beliefs and values in the Jesuit traditions, which affirm the equal dignity of every human being and of the human family in all its diversity. As noted by the dean of Georgetown Law, we are all ‘founded on the principle that serious and sustained discourse among people of different faiths, cultures and beliefs promotes intellectual, ethical and spiritual understanding,’” an AJCU spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed by email.

    AJCU did not answer specific questions sent by Inside Higher Ed.

    Raymond Plaza, director of Santa Clara University’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion and chair of AJCU’s Diversity and Equity Network, offered a defense of DEI initiatives. Speaking in his personal capacity, Plaza argued that DEI work has been deliberately misconstrued by its critics.

    “DEI is not about divisions or separation, it’s about how can I create a space where people can be their authentic selves and thrive?” Plaza said. “It’s not that this group thrives while the other one doesn’t.”

    He emphasized the need to create an environment where all students feel welcome. “At the end of the day, it’s really about how we build community on our campuses,” Plaza said.

    A review of university DEI pages shows that many Jesuit institutions cite their religious beliefs in support of such initiatives. Some emphasize social justice and inclusion as tenets of their faith.

    “Inspired by the Catholic and Jesuit tradition, our community believes that every human being is a profound gift of God, deserving of both dignity and opportunity,” Creighton University’s website reads. “We thus strive to acknowledge and celebrate diversity at Creighton—building equitable, inclusive, welcoming spaces and relationships that are required for every person to thrive.”

    Some institutions even note their antiracism efforts.

    “At LMU, the goal of diversity, equity, and inclusion is to actively cultivate an anti-racist institutional climate that supports inclusive excellence and fights systemic oppression,” Loyola Marymount University’s website reads, adding that such values are “intrinsic” to their mission.

    But other Jesuit universities appear to have backtracked in the face of Trump’s attacks on DEI.

    The University of Scranton, for example, overhauled its DEI page in recent weeks, removing references to systemic racism and the “historically unfair and unjust treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” according to an archived page available on the Wayback Machine.

    Le Moyne University also removed BIPOC references, identity-based resources and an “oath of diversity and inclusion” from its DEI page, an archive on the Wayback Machine shows. Le Moyne officials also told the student newspaper that the university is considering changing the name of its Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging office due to federal attacks on DEI efforts.

    An Untested Strategy

    Just because Jesuit institutions aren’t openly using religious freedom as a rationale for preserving DEI, it doesn’t mean the idea is without merit, legal and Catholic higher ed scholars say.

    Russo hasn’t seen any religious college call on its faith mission to defend DEI in court—at least not yet. While the idea is “floating around out there, it has not yet made much of a judicial splash,” he said.

    Still, he believes it’s a plausible legal argument that could receive a “strong reception” in the Supreme Court, provided colleges aren’t defending practices that directly butt up against the court’s ruling on race-conscious admissions. He believes the overall message of Treanor’s letter to Martin is “on the mark.”

    “I don’t think anybody would disagree that helping those most in need, however we describe that, is consistent with Christian values,” Russo said.

    Donna Carroll, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, agreed equity is a “mission-critical commitment” for most Catholic higher ed institutions.

    “For Catholic colleges and universities, DEI work is a long-held expression of mission and of the Catholic social teaching that anchors it—including a commitment to the dignity of each person, a solidarity with the vulnerable and less advantaged, and a care for the common good,” Carroll wrote to Inside Higher Ed. “All this is foundational to who we are, what and how we teach, and the services that we provide.”

    She sees Martin’s inquiry into Georgetown Law School as a disturbing challenge to academic freedom but isn’t sure if there’s a “threshold that might trigger concern about religious freedom” for Catholic institutions.

    “With so much uncertainty, it is hard to say,” she said. “And such a determination would require sectorwide discussion.”

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  • SCOTUS to hear Oklahoma religious charter school case

    SCOTUS to hear Oklahoma religious charter school case

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    The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, a case that could set precedent for religious schools’ access to public funds. 

    The case will determine whether a state violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause by excluding privately run religious schools from the state’s publicly funded charter school program. It will also decide whether a private religious school’s curriculum and practices are considered “state action” because the state funds the school’s free education.

    St. Isidore — which is to be run by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa — was set to open for the 2024-25 school year as a virtual school, but did not do so due to the ongoing litigation around its constitutionality. Had it opened, it would have been the nation’s first religious charter school.

    The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the school’s contract in 2023 in a 3-2 vote. At the time, board members acknowledged the decision to be controversial and said they expected litigation whichever way their vote went. 

    That contract was ultimately severed in August 2024 following an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that found the school would violate the state’s constitution and the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. The contract could, however, be reinstated depending on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision. 

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett plans to recuse herself from the case. No date has been set for oral arguments.

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