US Supreme Court Leans Toward Catholic Schools in Clash Over Pre-K Funding
A majority of Supreme Court justices appeared open to requiring Colorado to include Catholic schools in its publicly funded preschool program, even if their admissions policies reflect religious beliefs. The case, *St. Mary School v. Roy*, concerns a Catholic preschool-through-eighth-grade school in Littleton, in the Archdiocese of Denver, seeking to join the state program without guaranteeing admission to children of same-sex couples. Colorado argued that publicly funded preschool options should provide equal opportunity regardless of protected-class status; Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether excluding the school was necessary given the many alternatives available to families. Colorado’s universal prekindergarten program, approved by voters in 2020, is projected to receive about $360 million in state funding for the 2026–2027 school year.
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A majority of the U.S. Supreme Court’s justices appeared sympathetic to Catholic schools seeking access to Colorado’s publicly funded prekindergarten program, despite the state’s requirement that participating providers offer equal enrollment opportunities regardless of protected characteristics. The case, St. Mary School v. Roy, pits the schools’ religious admissions policies against Colorado’s nondiscrimination rules; the court has not yet issued a decision.
St. Mary School, a Catholic preschool-through-eighth-grade school in Littleton, wants to participate in Colorado’s universal prekindergarten program. The Archdiocese of Denver objects to the program’s requirement that participating preschools provide children equal opportunities to enroll and receive services, including without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity as those characteristics apply to a child or the child’s family.
Colorado voters approved the program in 2020, with funding from tobacco-related tax increases. For the 2026–27 school year, the state plans to spend about $360 million; providers receive about $6,100 per year for 15 hours a week of instruction for each four-year-old.
The schools’ lawyer, Nicholas Reaves of Becket, said Catholic officials want to make admissions decisions case by case in accordance with Church teaching, rather than comply with a state-imposed rule. He argued that the dispute has little practical effect because, according to his presentation, there are two other program providers within three miles of each Catholic preschool in the archdiocese.
Colorado deputy solicitor general Helen Norton argued that the state has an interest in ensuring equal access to publicly funded options. She said families may choose preschools based on location and hours, and can be harmed if they are turned away from a program that suits their needs because of a protected characteristic.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether the conflict was necessary given the number of preschool options in Colorado—more than 2,000 providers—and the archdiocese’s 34 schools offering preschool. Norton responded that the rules also protect Catholic families from being excluded from publicly funded preschools because of their faith or another protected characteristic.
Kavanaugh framed the case as a potential clash between religious free-exercise rights and the constitutional right to same-sex marriage recognized in Obergefell v. Hodges. He also raised the history of discrimination against Catholics in education, questioning a trial-record account in which the state program’s director said she was unaware of that history; Norton said Colorado recognized it and viewed the equal-opportunity rule as protective of religious families.
The article describes the three liberal justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson—as questioning the schools’ lawyer sharply, while the five conservative justices asked friendly or neutral questions. Chief Justice John Roberts largely moderated the discussion. The Trump administration’s principal deputy solicitor general, Sarah Harris, also argued in support of the Catholic schools.
Some legal observers have suggested the case could give the court an opportunity to reconsider Employment Division v. Smith, the 1990 decision on religious-exercise claims that many religious-liberty advocates criticize. The schools’ lawyer, however, offered the justices narrower grounds for ruling against Colorado’s admissions requirements, emphasizing the availability of nearby program alternatives.
Religious liberty, equal access, and public funding in pluralist societies
The Catholic perspective on religious liberty, equal access, and public funding begins with two connected claims: parents have a fundamental right to choose an education suited to their convictions, and religious schools should be able to participate in public arrangements without being forced to abandon their religious identity. In a pluralist society, public support can therefore serve fairness and freedom rather than amounting to state endorsement of a religion. But Catholic teaching does not, by itself, settle the legal outcome of a particular funding dispute or require every publicly funded program to finance every school on identical terms.
Catholic teaching understands religious freedom as a right of the human person—not as a claim that all religions or beliefs are equally true. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith explains that freedom of conscience and religion protects a person from external coercion in seeking and adhering to religious truth; it does not require religious relativism or indifference to truth.
That distinction matters in public debates. A Catholic school’s request to participate in a public program need not imply that government regards Catholic and non-Catholic beliefs as interchangeable. The argument is instead that citizens and families should not lose access to a public benefit because their educational choice is religious. The Church also regards religious institutions as entitled to a public presence: Catholic schools are not simply private expressions of individual belief but part of the Church’s educational mission.
At the same time, religious liberty is not a claim that religious institutions must be exempt from every generally applicable public rule. The supplied sources establish the importance of conscience, institutional religious life, and parental choice, but do not specify how every possible funding condition should be evaluated. The hard question in a particular dispute is whether a condition protects a legitimate public purpose in a fair way, or instead penalizes a school for maintaining its religious character.
The Church’s case for educational pluralism is closely connected to the rights of parents. The Congregation for Catholic Education states that the student—or, for a child, the parents—has a right to choose the kind of school preferred, and that a state monopoly of education is therefore not acceptable in principle. The qualification matters: how choice is exercised depends in practice on a country’s social circumstances.
Catholic schools are presented as one option within a wider educational landscape. In a pluralistic society, their presence can support cooperation by giving families an alternative consistent with their educational purposes and conscience. Pluralism, in this account, is not merely the coexistence of different beliefs; it includes the practical possibility of forming institutions shaped by those beliefs.
That does not mean every family must choose a religious school, or that the state should establish Catholic education as the common model. It means that formal freedom to choose may be inadequate if families can realistically afford only one kind of school. The 1998 document frames the state’s role in terms of a person’s effective ability to obtain suitable education of free choice, not simply the state’s relationship with school institutions.
The strongest Catholic argument for public funding is not that the state should favor the Church, but that public support should not make parental choice merely theoretical. The 1998 document states:
“The public authority, therefore, whose duty it is to protect and defend the liberty of the citizens, is bound according to the principle of distributive justice to ensure that public subsidies are so allocated that parents are truly free to select schools for their children in accordance with their conscience”.
“Distributive justice” means fairness in how public resources and benefits are allocated. Applied to education, the argument is that if public authorities support schooling for the common good, they should consider whether the structure of that support leaves families with a meaningful choice among educational options. The same document calls for equality for non-state schools that respects their educational project, and identifies the juridical and financial recognition of such schools as a serious issue in some countries.
Pius XI had earlier made a similar argument in Divini illius Magistri: in a society with different religious beliefs, the state need not rely only on neutral or mixed schools; it can leave room for family and Church initiative and provide assistance as justice demands. He pointed to state aid to schools sought by families as an example of distributive justice. John Paul II likewise argued that pluralistic societies should support educational forms corresponding to citizens’ deepest aspirations, while recognizing the limits imposed by the common good.
These sources articulate a Catholic moral principle, not a complete funding formula. They do not determine the amount of aid, the eligibility rules for a particular program, or whether a specific constitutional provision requires inclusion. Nor do they establish that every school must receive every form of public funding. They support the claim that public authorities should take parental freedom and fair access seriously when distributing education-related benefits.
In a case involving a publicly supported preschool program, the central Catholic concern would be whether a religious school is excluded because it is religious, or whether a neutral program is open to eligible providers on fair terms. Equal access need not mean that all schools have identical missions, curricula, or admissions practices. It means that difference in religious character should not automatically disqualify a school from participating in a public benefit otherwise available to comparable institutions.
The other side of the balance is respect for the school’s religious character. The Congregation for Catholic Education calls for collaboration between schools and civil authorities based on mutual respect and recognition of each other’s role, and stresses that public arrangements should respect religious freedom and the school’s educational project. A public program that welcomes a Catholic school only on condition that it cease to be recognizably Catholic could therefore frustrate the very religious liberty that equal access is meant to protect.
This does not, on the evidence available here, resolve questions about particular admissions rules, program standards, or the treatment of students and staff. Catholic sources in the supplied material do not analyze the details of the reported Supreme Court dispute, so its precise legal claims and likely outcome remain unresolved here. The moral principles are clearer than the case-specific legal application.
A pluralist society must manage two risks. One is allowing public institutions to favor a single secular or religious model so strongly that families’ stated freedom becomes practically hollow. The other is treating religious institutions as though participation in public life were itself an improper establishment of religion. Catholic educational teaching resists both: it calls for a place for Catholic schools within national school systems while supporting parents’ freedom and cooperation across diverse communities.
The practical Catholic position is therefore not simply “fund religious schools” or “keep religion out of public programs.” It is that public authorities should assess funding arrangements in light of human dignity, parental choice, fair allocation, the common good, and respect for the genuine religious identity of participating schools. Equal access should not require a family to set aside conscience, and public support should not be mistaken for a declaration that the state endorses the school’s theology.