Supreme Court to decide if Christian schools can participate in pre-K funding program
April 21, 2026
The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a pair of Catholic schools were wrongly excluded from a Colorado preschool program over their theological views on LGBT issues.
The Christian Post reports that Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal, in the case of St. Mary Catholic Parish et al v. Lisa Roy et al., on when the government can exclude religious entities from public programs.
The case stems from a complaint filed in August 2023 by St. Mary Catholic Parish in Littleton and St. Bernadette Catholic Parish in Lakewood over allegations that the state excluded them from participating in the Colorado Universal Preschool Program Act due to their religious beliefs.
The two parishes prefer to admit Catholic families to their programs and require their staff to adhere to Catholic teachings on sexual ethics and gender identity.
The two churches, along with the Catholic Archdiocese of Denver and the parents of preschool-aged children sued Lisa Roy, executive director of the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and Dawn Odean, director of Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program.
The issue stemmed from the equal opportunity requirement of Colorado’s 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.”
A district court ruled against the plaintiffs in June 2024, concluding 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.”
However, according to the Christian Post, the district court agreed with the plaintiffs that they should not be forced to “provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll and receive preschool services regardless of religious affiliation” as a condition for participation and granted them $1 in damages.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court decision last September, with Circuit Judge Richard Federico, a Biden appointee, authoring the opinion.
The plaintiffs filed an appeal in November with the Supreme Court, represented by the Becket Fund, a prominent legal group specializing in religious liberty cases.
Nick Reaves, senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement last year, “That sort of religious discrimination flies in the face of our nation’s traditions and decades of Supreme Court rulings. We’re asking the Court to step in and make sure ‘universal’ preschool really is universal.”
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