Opinion: Andrea Picciotti-Bayer Says Colorado's Universal Preschool Revives the Anti-Catholic Logic of the Blaine Amendments
Ahead of Tuesday's Supreme Court arguments, the author argues a single 'equal opportunity' clause shuts Catholic preschools out of a state benefit. She wrote a brief in the case.
This is a summary of an opinion column in Fox News. The views are the author's, not RightNewsRightNow's.
The argument. Andrea Picciotti-Bayer writes that Colorado's universal preschool program shuts out Catholic families through one clause. To take part, a school must promise "equal opportunity," which covers sexual orientation and gender identity. She says Catholic schools cannot sign that without abandoning church teaching, so they are out. "Colorado never has to say 'Catholic,'" she writes. "It only has to write a rule that Catholic schools cannot meet."
The families. She opens with parents who pay for Catholic preschool out of pocket while their taxes fund other children's programs. The state benefit, she says, is worth about $6,000 a year for an eligible 4-year-old. She cites a case, St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, which the Supreme Court hears Nov. 3, and says she filed an amicus brief for the families.
The history. She compares the policy to the Blaine amendments. Those were pushed in the 1870s to bar public money from "sectarian" schools, with Catholic immigrants as the real target, and she says roughly three dozen states wrote versions into their constitutions. She notes Justice Clarence Thomas has written that "sectarian" was code for "Catholic."
The legal point. She says the Court's rulings in Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza and Carson hold that a state cannot disqualify schools from a public benefit for being religious. She also points out that Colorado allows providers to serve only certain groups, such as only low-income children or only the LGBTQ+ community, but offers no such flexibility for Catholic schools.
The cost. She says about 1,500 children across 30 schools have been shut out, Catholic preschool enrollment has dropped about 20%, and two preschools have closed. She asks the justices to tell Colorado "again" that constitutional guarantees do not "collapse under the pressure of ideology."
Our note: these figures and the characterization of Colorado's motives are the author's. The column does not include a response from the state. An earlier report on this site covered one family's story in the same case.