⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

We hear the Supreme Court in Saint Mary Catholic Parish versus Roy. Colorado pays for up to fifteen hours of weekly preschool for four-year-olds at participating public, private, and religious schools. Providers must offer an equal opportunity to enroll regardless of listed characteristics, including a child's or family's religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The parish schools require parents to support Catholic teachings, including on marriage and gender. They say accepting those enrollment conditions would conflict with their religious mission. The Archdiocese directed its parish preschools not to join, and schools and parents sued in two-thousand-twenty-three. After trial, the district court upheld the sexual-orientation and gender-identity conditions; the Tenth Circuit affirmed. A separate religious-affiliation ruling led Colorado to remove an earlier preference for congregation members. The question here is funding and admissions, not whether schools may teach their faith. Two paths to stronger constitutional review are in play. Under Employment Division versus Smith, a neutral, generally applicable law can ordinarily be enforced even when it incidentally burdens religious exercise. The schools will argue that secular enrollment preferences and official discretion mean Colorado's requirements are not generally applicable. The state will answer that those arrangements support equal access, rather than permit the discrimination the schools seek to practice. Separately, the Carson decision barred exclusion from a tuition program because schools provided religious instruction. The justices will consider whether that benefits principle reaches funding conditions that do not expressly exclude religion. Strict scrutiny means the government must justify a restriction with a compelling interest and a narrowly tailored approach; it does not automatically guarantee an exemption. Nicholas Reaves, of the Becket Fund, will argue for the schools and parents. Sarah Harris will support them for the United States, which is participating without being a party. Helen Norton, Colorado's Deputy Solicitor General, will defend the state.

St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy (No. 25-581) — Supreme Court of the United States, argued November 3, 2026.