Supreme Court to Hear Colorado Catholic Preschool Funding Fight

The US Supreme Court will consider whether Colorado can bar Catholic preschools from a state funding program over their refusal to admit children whose families don’t adhere to church teachings on gender and sexuality.

The justices agreed on Monday to hear St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy. The parish, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, challenged Colorado’s ban on Catholic schools participating in the state’s universal preschool program.

Any preschool provider in the state is eligible for funding if it offers equal enrollment opportunities to all children. The parish seeks an exemption that would allow it to receive funding while declining to admit children based on their or their parents’ gender identity or sexual orientation, the state argues.

Petitioners say the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit was wrong when it found the law didn’t exclude Catholic schools on the basis of their religious beliefs. On behalf of the parish, Becket argued the law fails the court’s neutrality and general applicability test under Employment Division v. Smith because the state has granted exemptions for other reasons.

The court declined to reconsider its Smith precedent, which allowed Oregon to deny unemployment benefits to two workers dismissed for using peyote in a religious ceremony..

Several conservative justices have signaled interest in revisiting Smith. Justice Samuel Alito explicitly called for overturning the precedent in a lengthy 2021 concurring opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing separately and joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, also indicated openness to reconsidering the decision.

The Trump administration had urged the court to take up the case in a rare unsolicited amicus brief in February. The solicitor general’s office has taken a more assertive approach during President Donald Trump’s second term, increasingly filing such briefs in an effort to steer the court’s docket toward cases aligned with the administration’s policy priorities.

The case is St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, U.S., No. 25-581, granted cert on 4/20/26.