A Colorado Christian school has sued state officials for requiring them to abandon their religious beliefs in order to participate in a universal preschool program, which conveys the message to families that they “cannot be religious” to receive equal opportunities, an attorney representing the school told Fox News Digital.
“It says to the families that they’re second-class citizens and that their religious beliefs aren’t important,” senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom Jeremiah Galus said. “It’s the type of message that is not just wrong, it’s unconstitutional.”
Darren Patterson Christian Academy, a faith-based school in Buena Vista, Colorado, applied and was approved for the state’s new universal preschool program set to go into effect July 1, which guaranteed every four-year-old in the state at least 15 hours per week of state-funded preschool services for the upcoming school year. However, The Colorado Department of Early Education mandated that for a school to participate and receive state funding, the school can’t hire employees based on the school’s religious beliefs, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal advocacy group committed to protecting the First Amendment and representing DPCA in their lawsuit.
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A Colorado Christian school sues state officials in a religious discrimination lawsuit over provisions in the state’s universal pre-K program. (iStock)
The program does not ban Christian schools or any religious schools from participating. But ADF said the DPCA’s faith-based values are central to its policies and practices, including their hiring and employment decisions, and the provisions would negatively impact their internal structure.
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“Darren Patterson hires religious teachers to fulfill its Christian mission to advance its Christian messages,” Galus said. “And for the state of Colorado to say you have to give that up to participate in a universal program that everyone else is eligible for is for the state of Colorado to tell the school and to tell those parents that you cannot be religious.”
Galus says the Supreme Court has made it clear the government can’t exclude religious organizations from generally available government programs. The ADF attorney says Colorado has no argument in this case. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
In 2022, for example, Maine banned families from using funds from a state tuition program, designed for kids without access to a local public school, at private religious schools. The Supreme Court ruled in Carson vs. Makin that government programs can’t exclude students who attend a religious school from a government program if they are otherwise qualified.
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“What is at stake here is that the government is saying we get to decide,” Galus said. “We get to decide who Darren Patterson Christian Academy chooses as its teachers. We get to decide the type of education that they provide.”
