Supreme Court Weighs Colorado School Mandate

Colorado voters approved Proposition EE in 2020 to fund free, voluntary preschool. The catch: participating schools must enroll every child regardless of religion, sexual orientation or gender identity. The Archdiocese of Denver sought an exemption for its 36 Catholic preschools, was refused, and those schools sat out.

A federal trial court sided with Colorado, saying the state never excluded religious schools. Thirty-six schools stayed home and nobody got shut out. Strip the spin off and what's left is a loyalty oath attached to the money. The Federalist calls it a shutout of Catholic preschools; The Hill's blurb asks whether schools taking public dollars must admit children of same-sex couples.

The justices hear it on Election Day. Simple question: who decides what a Catholic school teaches its own kids? Nobody in Colorado's capitol wants to answer that one.