Will your Tax Payer Dollars be Used to Fund Religious Public Schools?

    Can your tax dollars contribute to the funding of a public charter school that explicitly teaches a religion you may or may not agree with? Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville v. Knox County Board of Education has the potential to be the next landmark case in the intersection of state funding and religious education. Wilberforce Academy, a Christian non-profit organization, is attempting to create a publicly funded charter school that provides an “explicitly biblical and Christian education”. However, their proposal was shut down by the Knox County Board of Education due to the Tennessee State law that does not allow for a religious interpretation of bible studies for publicly funded schools. The law states that public funds may be used for “a nonsectarian, nonreligious academic study of the Bible”. Now, Wilberforce Academy is taking the Board to court, asserting that they are facing religious discrimination due to their inability to use state funds for their charter school, while other secular nonprofit organizations have that ability, citing a violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. 

    Charter schools operate as a middle ground between public and private education but lean much more towards the public end. Due to the fact that charter schools receive tax payer dollars, it becomes an issue as to whether or not the funding of Wilberforce Academy would violate the establishment clause in the constitution. The establishment clause in the constitution serves as a barrier between the church and the state that prevents public funding from going towards religious endeavors such as a religious charter school. However, Wilberforce can argue that it is unfair treatment to allow other public schools that are secular to receive these state funds while religious ones cannot. Wilberforce is not asking for a connection of the church and the state, rather that religious charters are treated the same as secular ones. 

    In 2017 the Supreme Court made a decision that greatly impacts the outlook of the Wilberforce case. The Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer case decided whether or not a religious preschool could receive state grants for a playground resurfacing, the same grants that were given to secular schools. After Trinity Church, a religious non-profit, had their application for the grant denied, they took their appeal to court and the court decided in a 7-2 decision that the denial of the grant violated the free exercise of religion clause. Similar to the grant for playground equipment, public funds are a public benefit, meaning under the constitution, everyone should have equal access to them and should not be discriminated against for their religious goals.

It is also worth mentioning that the Supreme Court recently split 4-4 (Judge Barrett recused herself) on Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, an almost identical case. Previous to being brought to the Supreme Court, the Oklahoma supreme court ruled that the public funding of the religious charter school was unconstitutional.

    Based on the judicial precedent that has been set by the Trinity case, I expect that, assuming the case reaches the supreme court, the supreme court will rule in favor of Wilberforce Academy. The precedent has been set that the judicial system views public goods, from playground equipment grants and now likely to taxpayer dollars, as necessarily equally accessible for secular and religious institutions. Given that these charter schools are optional, tuition free, and open to the public, similar to public schools, it gives the families more autonomy and makes it difficult to argue that students could receive religious education against their will. With that being said, I think judicial precedent and a valid interpretation of the first amendment allows for the funding of religious public charters like Wilberforce Academy. 

    There are many important implications that need to be considered if the courts side with Wilberforce Academy. Most importantly, being that non secular public charter schools will now be able to be funded through tax payer dollars for the first time in American history. This likely outcome will provide a difficult path for the success of minority religious groups in the United States. Although this interpretation of the law seems neutral at face value, as it allows all religious and non-religious groups to open public charters, it will likely be unequal in practice. 

Even though public charters receive a portion of their funding from state grants, those grants alone are rarely ever enough to get a school up and running. Public charters still receive a large amount of private funding to operate, the state grants are just a portion of that funding. Therefore, minority religious groups will have a much more difficult time to start a charter school, if they ever do, than the dominant religions. All in all, I would be surprised to see the judicial precedent that was set in the Trinity case be turned around. However, I think that the lack of neutrality and equality that this decision would create calls for the court to decide in favor of the Tennessee School Board’s interpretation of the free exercise and establishment clause.