Petition for Certiorari Authored by Religious Liberty Clinic Director Eric Rassbach Granted by Supreme Court
On Monday April 20, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy. The cert petition was authored by Eric Rassbach, visiting professor and director of the Hugh and Hazel Darling Foundation Religious Liberty Clinic, which is co-housed in the Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics and the Ken Starr Institute for Faith, Law, and Public Service. This is the second successful cert petition Rassbach has offered since joining Pepperdine Caruso Law.
Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, helped lead the legal team at Becket representing a group of Catholic clients before the Supreme Court. At issue in the case is whether Colorado violated the Free Exercise Clause when it created a "universal" pre-K program that was open to private schools, but set up the program in such a way that Catholic schools couldn’t participate.
Rassbach reflected on the case: “Colorado said everyone should have access to pre-K, but then gerrymandered parents who wanted to send their children to Catholic schools out. We’re thankful the Supreme Court is stepping in.”
The Supreme Court will likely hear the case in the Fall, and the decision promises to be significant in determining the ability of religious parents and institutions to participate in society without compromising their beliefs.
Excerpt from St. Mary’s Catholic Parish v. Lisa Roy Petition for Certiorari:
Colorado created a universal preschool program that funds families to send children to the public or private preschool of their choice— but not the Archdiocese of Denver’s Catholic preschools. Why the exclusion? Because, Colorado says, these preschools’ religious practice of admitting only families who support Catholic teachings, including on sex and gender, is “discrimination.” Yet Colorado has permitted many exemptions, both categorical and discretionary, from the “equal opportunity” rule it has invoked against Catholic preschools. And far from facilitating “universal” preschool, Colorado’s exclusion of Catholic preschools reduces access, pushing parents and children toward preschools that share the government’s views on these issues and penalizing the religious schools and families who disagree. All in a program the Tenth Circuit calls a “model” under Smith.
This Court promised in Obergefell that religious groups would be protected when they dissent from secular orthodoxies about marriage and sexuality. The Free Exercise Clause simply cannot do that important work—which this Court has described as “at the heart of our pluralistic society”—if it can be so easily evaded.
The complete petition may be found at St. Mary’s Catholic Parish v. Lisa Roy