Colorado’s Preschool Program Survives Constitutional Challenge

Colorado defeated a constitutional challenge brought by a pair of Catholic parishes that said their preschools were unconstitutionally excluded from a statewide funding program due to their religious beliefs because they refused to sign a nondiscrimination agreement.

The state’s preschool funding program’s equal opportunity requirements didn’t violate the parishes’ right to exercise their religious beliefs, the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit said. When “a school takes money from the state that is meant to ensure universal education, then its doors must be open to all,” the court said.

Moreover, the state “went to great effort to be ...