Church/state groups file motion to help block proposed Christian charter school in Tennessee

Wilberforce Academy would be a taxpayer-funded Christian charter school. Church/state separation groups now want to be directly involved in the legal battle.

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Several groups that promote church/state separation are asking a federal judge to let them intervene in a case in which a proposed Christian school is demanding taxpayer support. In essence, the groups are saying they have a stake in the outcome of this case, so even though they’re not directly involved, they want to make sure the court also hears their arguments regarding the constitutionality of the scheme.

I wrote about this school several weeks ago, so I’m republishing most of that piece below, along with the relevant updates:

Students at a religious school (image via Adobe Spark)

According to a lawsuit, filed in federal court on November 30, the non-profit Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville wanted to launch a charter school for grades K-8 that would open in the fall of 2027. They made clear to officials at the Knox County Board of Education that the main goal wasn’t to educate children in a meaningful way but rather to indoctrinate kids: “Christianity lies at the center of Wilberforce’s mission.” They add that their charter “affirms the truth of the Apostles’ Creed and the inerrancy and infallibility of the Holy Bible” and that “a purely secular education is necessarily an inferior one.”

Above all, Christ serves as the cornerstone of Wilberforce Academy’s mission, guiding the formation of students who are academically prepared, spiritually grounded, and equipped to lead lives of purpose. Wilberforce exists so that students can come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, grow in a personal relationship with Him, and be equipped to make Him known wherever God leads them.

Apparently teaching kids math, science, literacy, or anything else is a much lower priority, though they say elsewhere in the lawsuit that, after all the Jesus stuff, they plan to focus on civics education—William Wilberforce was an abolitionist, after all—and entrepreneurialism.

All teachers at this school would have to share its fundamentalist beliefs—so no Jews, atheists, Muslims, gay people, etc. would be hired on staff.

The problem, they said, was that Tennessee law prevented them from using taxpayer dollars to open up their doors. Public charter schools are supposed to be “nonsectarian” and “nonreligious.” Furthermore, any charter school cannot “promote the agenda of any religious denomination or religiously affiliated entity.”

This makes perfect sense, of course. Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to advance religion (or atheism). It’s in the Constitution. Courts have repeatedly affirmed this, even if the U.S. Supreme Court has chipped away at that wall of separation in recent decades.

The lawsuit said the people behind Wilberforce Academy submitted a letter of intent to set up their school on November 25, 2025 knowing full well they couldn’t get approved.

… that letter, which must be submitted on the State’s form, makes clear that Wilbeforce [sic] cannot and will not be allowed to open or apply to open a charter school… The “Sponsor Eligibility” section of the mandatory form states that a sponsor must meet the eligibility requirements established by the Tennessee Charter Schools Act… So Wilberforce’s letter had to admit that it does not meet those requirements because it “does ‘promote the agenda of any religious denomination or religiously affiliated entity.’”

…

Wilberforce Academy is able and ready to apply for charter status, once a court orders Defendants to stop discriminating against religious schools and sponsors. If a court ordered adequate relief, Wilberforce would immediately apply to sponsor a Christian charter school for the earliest school year it could open…

There was no discrimination happening here. Just as we saw in Oklahoma, where religious zealots have repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried to launch religious charter schools, there’s good reason for public dollars to support public education. And public education is not pro-atheist education, no matter how much Christian liars want to claim otherwise.

The Academy even cited a handful of church/state separation groups in their lawsuit, saying that there was organized opposition to their theocratic fantasy:

National secularist groups like the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and the American Civil Liberties Union are committed to bringing legals challenges to any religious charter school that gets approved or opens its doors. When Oklahoma approved a religious charter school, for instance, these organizations sued the following month alleging violations of the Establishment Clause… Without judicial confirmation of its rights, no religious charter school can safely apply, open, or operate without an inevitable lawsuit by outside groups or a cutoff of funding by the State.

Damn right they couldn’t operate without a lawsuit because religious charter schools shouldn’t exist—and cannot legally exist. As I’ve written before, public money should never be siphoned into sectarian projects that explicitly reject the kinds of obligations public schools have: inclusivity, non-discrimination, professional standards, and a curriculum grounded in fact rather than dogma.

This wasn’t about school choice. It was a deliberate attempt to dismantle the wall between church and state.

The lawsuit argued that there was nothing wrong with using tax dollars for religious schools. In fact, the lawyers said, Tennessee has a voucher program that allows public dollars to be spent at private schools (including private religious schools). But that was never a fair comparison. The laws regarding charter schools in Tennessee are much more clear cut and don’t involve private schools at all.

If a court ever opened that door, it would be next to impossible to close. The end result wouldn’t be a richer educational landscape. It would be a broken system where public dollars fund private belief. And that would almost entirely be conservative Christian belief.

The lawsuit insisted this wasn’t really the problem and that they were defending religious minorities. They said the laws against aid going to sectarian schools were “born of bigotry” and passed due to hostility against Catholics and Jews. But the fact remains that public money going to public schools doesn’t discriminate against any religious group. That’s the whole point. Public schools welcome students of different religions without trying to convert them. This school claimed it was open to students of different religions, too, but they very much wanted to convert them. That’s why they don’t deserve public funding.

Knox County is under no obligation to green-light this travesty of a school. If Christians want to stunt the educational growth of children, they’re welcome to do it on their own time, with their own money, with the help of parents who also don’t value a real education. But the government can’t play the same game. There’s way too much at stake.

So how are the church/state separation groups now getting involved?

They’ve just filed a motion in federal court—on behalf of several local taxpayers who don’t want to fund religious schools—saying that they need to be involved in this case because Knox County has already told the judge they “will most likely not take an official position” on whether taxpayer funding of religious charter schools is constitutional. Therefore, the intervenors need to make that argument on their behalf: “… [W]ithout Proposed Intervenors, the constitutionality of the Tennessee law at issue will not receive the thorough, adversarial examination it warrants.”

To put it more bluntly, Knox County has told the court they just want to argue over procedure. They’re playing it safe. They don’t want to be sued. So they’re going to vote on a resolution to ask the state’s Commissioner of Education if Wilberforce should be given a waiver to the state’s ban on religious charter schools. They’re not interested in arguing that religious charter schools shouldn’t exist.

But the church/state separation groups care about that substance, and that’s why they want in on this:

Unlike the Board, Proposed Intervenors intend to offer a full defense of the constitutionality of Tennessee’s prohibitions against state funding and operating of charter schools that teach a religious curriculum.

(The taxpayers are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Education Law Center, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and by the law firm Morrison Foerster.)

A press release issued by those groups offered a full-throated defense of why they’re getting involved:

“Public education is part of the common good. A religious charter school would be at odds with the need to ensure public schools remain appropriate for and welcoming to students of all faiths, families and backgrounds,” said proposed intervenor Amanda Collins, a retired school psychologist and parent of Knox County public school students. “And it would divert already limited public funds and scarce resources away from other public schools in Knox County. We can’t let this happen.”

This shouldn’t be a controversial move and a judge ought to approve it without further argument. Better to just nip this situation in the bud rather than wait for the county to approve the school and then watch the lawsuits pour in.

As I said before, religious charter schools aren’t some natural next step in “school choice.” They’re nothing more than a Trojan horse intended to destroy the wall between church and state from the inside. That’s why they want government approval to open a school that openly excludes non-believing teachers, evangelizes students, and reshapes the entire curriculum around a conservative Christian worldview, all while insisting they are owed public dollars to do it. If this becomes the new normal, every religious extremist with a business plan and right-wing lawyers will demand the same.

That’s why courts must reject this strategy. Public schools are meant for everyone, and charter schools are meant to protect that tradition. Wilberforce proudly rejects that worthwhile cause. If the courts fail, the damage won’t be limited to one county in Tennessee. It could affect the rest of the country too.

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