Supreme Court to decide if Christian schools can participate in pre-K funding program

 The U.S. Supreme Court is set to decide whether a pair of Catholic schools were wrongly excluded from a Colorado preschool program over their theological views on LGBT issues.

In an orders list released Monday, the Supreme Court granted certiorari, or agreed to hear an appeal, in the case of St. Mary Catholic Parish et al v. Lisa Roy et al., namely on when the government can exclude religious entities from public programs.

In August 2023, St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton and St. Bernadette Catholic Parish in Lakewood filed a complaint alleging that the state excluded them from participating in the Colorado Universal Preschool Program Act due to their religious beliefs.

The two parishes have a preference for admitting Catholic families to their programs and they require their staff to adhere to Catholic teaching, including on sexual ethics and gender identity.

In addition to the two churches, other plaintiffs included the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver and the parents of preschool-aged children. Named defendants included Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and Dawn Odean, director of Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program.

The Colorado government program provides a minimum of 15 hours of free preschool each week for an eligible child and is funded by both private and public money.

At specific issue was the equal opportunity requirement of the Universal Preschool Program, which required participating preschools to “provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll and receive services regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level, or disability, as such characteristics and circumstances apply to the child or the child’s family.”

In June 2024, a district court ruled against the plaintiffs, concluding in part that the requirement “does not exclude Plaintiffs from the UPK Program solely because of their religious status or exercise,” but rather “applies to UPK providers, regardless of their religious or non-religious character.”

Supreme Court to weigh in on challenge to Colorado pre-K program | Politics