Another effort is underway to create country’s first fully taxpayer-funded religious school
County school board in Kentucky has approved charter plan that challenges state law
When a 4-4 Supreme Court tie vote last year had the effect of preventing the opening of a Catholic virtual charter school in Oklahoma, it quickly became clear that the next step for advocates of taxpayer-funded religious schools was to come up with a new proposal that could secure a tie-breaking fifth vote on the court.
And so it is that now, a bit more than one year later, advocates of at least three such schools have taken concrete steps needed to get the issue before the Supreme Court again. If the high court agrees with the schools, the decision would radically upend the state of public education in America, allowing the possibility that taxpayers would be funding religious schools across the country, at least in any state that allows for charter schools.
The high court’s split decision last year involved the St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School that had been approved by a statewide school board in Oklahoma. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the plans violated by the Oklahoma and U.S. constitutions, and that decision was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett abstaining, apparently due to a conflict of interest, the high court’s split vote allowed the Oklahoma ruling to stand.
Now, organizers have advanced plans for three other religious charter schools, any of which are extremely unlikely to begin operating without Supreme Court approval:
🟪 Last year, the Florida-based National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter Foundation proposed to the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, the same board that had approved the St. Isidore plan, the creation of a Jewish virtual charter school. But citing the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision, the Oklahoma board rejected the plan. Now, the Becket law firm, one of the country’s leading litigators involved in religious-freedom cases, is taking Oklahoma to court on behalf of Ben Gamla.
🟪 In Knox County, Tenn., the proposed evangelical Christian Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville last year tried to get the Knox County Board of Education to approve a charter. But the board said no — leading to a lawsuit by the school and the intervention of the American Civil Liberties Union in opposing the school. As with the Ben Gamla proposal, the Wilberforce plan will be decided by a trial court and then, in all likelihood, appealed regardless of which side prevails.
🟪 Most recently, Union University, a Kentucky-based evangelical school with about 2,700 undergraduate and graduate students, received approval from the Jackson-Madison County School System Board on April 30 to sponsor a K-12 charter school, Union Academy.
Union Academy has the support of the Alliance Defending Liberty, another major litigant in religious-freedom cases. So far, there have been no lawsuits to prevent the school from opening as planned in the fall of 2027, although such as lawsuit is inevitable. Not only does the school raise constitutional questions, it also is in conflict with a state law that prevents the creation of charter schools that have a religious mission.
The ADF is looking forward to defending the school. It said in a written statement:
Tennessee parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer. The Jackson-Madison County School System Board was right to approve Union Academy’s request to operate as a charter school and should be commended for refusing to engage in unconstitutional discrimination based upon the school’s religious character. Alliance Defending Freedom wholeheartedly supports Union Academy in its endeavor to become the nation’s first religious charter school, opening up educational options and freedom for more Tennessee families.
Of course, opponents disagree. Although the ACLU has yet to weigh in specifically on the Union Academy plan, it has spoken about religious charter schools in general:
Church-state separation is a cornerstone of our democracy. It’s critical to preserving the right of every person to decide for themselves — without pressure from the government — which religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice. It also ensures that the government doesn’t undermine religion either by co-opting it for political purposes or rendering religious institutions dependent on the state to spread their faith. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that the separation between religion and government is particularly crucial in our public schools, which, by design, freely serve all students equally regardless of religious background or preference.
Such a legal fight over religious charter schools became inevitable with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Carson v. Makin. In that 2022 case, the court ruled 6-3 that Maine’s school voucher program could not exclude religious schools from the program simply because they are religious than nature. Backers of religious charter schools are trying use the logic of Carson to support their cause, although there are substantial differences between vouchers and charters. Most significantly, in a voucher program, government funds go to parents, who then have discretion about how they are used. If they are used for religious schools, those schools remain privately owned and operated.
But in charter programs, the funds go straight to the schools, raising issues, in the case of religious schools, about government hiring of persons based on their religious beliefs. The charter schools remain privately owned but are operated as a sort of government/private hybrid. Also, voucher programs generally do not pay 100 percent of students’ tuition, while parents who send their children to charter schools pay no tuition.
Like other charter schools in Kentucky, the proposed Union Academy would be required to admit students regardless of their religious beliefs or practices. But, according to its charter application, it would hire only teachers which agree with the school’s statement of faith — which consists of typical evangelical belief statements including one on sexuality: “God created only two genders and He fashioned each one of us as either male or female. Sexual relationships are designed by God to be expressed solely within a marriage between a man and a woman.”
Union Academy’s application describes its purpose in part like this:
Union Academy will be a Christ-centered, academically rigorous public charter school designed to serve families in Jackson, Tennessee and the surrounding communities who are seeking a high-quality, tuition-free education grounded in Christian values. The school’s mission is to provide Christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to Church and society.
Union Academy will deliver a strong academic program to K-12 students with an emphasis on literacy, mathematics, science, critical thinking, and great texts of the Western tradition interconnected with Biblical worldview.
The school is projected to have 320 students in its first year and 530 in its fifth year with a total potential enrollment of 780. It would start as a K-5 elementary school and ultimately include students through high school.