(DENVER) – Advance Colorado this morning said the state’s decision to abandon a plan to retroactively ban religious preschool and early childhood programs from participating in the new universal preschool program strikes a blow against unconstitutional religious discrimination. The group had threatened legal action if the plan had been implemented.
“This is a huge win for parents who want to choose a faith-based preschool for their young children,” said Advance Colorado Executive Vice President Kristi Burton Brown. “It’s crystal clear that the state can’t treat some Colorado families differently just because they are religious. Abandoning this poorly conceived, discriminatory proposal was a very wise move.”
Last month, Advance Colorado sent a letter to state officials, including Gov. Jared Polis, detailing how under recent federal case precedent (most notably the 2022 case
Carson v. Makin) since the State is offering funding to secular private schools, it may not ban religious private schools. To do so would be to illegally discriminate against and deprive Colorado families who prefer that their child is educated in a religious environment.
Colorado specifically invited faith-based preschools to join the universal preschool program that was inaugurated this academic year. It would be explicitly discriminatory for the State to retroactively exclude religious schools after it included them, because the removal would be purely based on religion.
“While the government must indeed be religiously neutral, it may not be anti-religious,” the letter states.
The letter also explicitly warned state officials that because the new, discriminatory rules would be so clearly unconstitutional, had the state implemented the anti-religious funding ban, Advance Colorado would sue to have the rules overturned by the courts.
“Constitutional protections against religious discrimination are in place precisely to prevent this kind of unfair and illegal treatment of some Colorado families and faith-based preschool providers,” Burton Brown said, “We are glad the state saw the light and abandoned this very bad idea.”
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