A group of parents from California are requesting the U.S. Supreme Court to examine a case aimed at terminating a California Charter school policy that bans the use of homeschool study programs and religious materials.
According to a story by the Christian Post, last week the First Liberty Institute, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and King & Spalding LLP filed a petition on behalf of three families — John and Breanna Woolard, Hector and Diana Gonzales, and Carrie Dodson — in the case of John Woolard, et al. v. Tony Thurmond et al.
The crux of the matter is whether a California policy can permit charter schools to refuse parents funding and academic credit for educational materials that are deemed religious in nature.
“The charter schools overseeing petitioners’ independent-study programs rejected the use of works by William Penn and Jonathan Edwards because of their ‘religious content,’” the petition alleged.
In addition, the families had also looked to use materials including Bob Jones University’s “Focus on Fives” and “The Good and the Beautiful,” both created to incorporate religious teaching into academic subjects, according to ReligiousLiberty.TV.
“They rejected a grammar exercise using the sentence ‘God sends the rain to help plants grow’ because the school ‘can’t accept any work sample with any religious wording on it.’”
Hiram Sasser, the Executive General Counsel for the Liberty Institute said in a statement last week that prior decisions in the litigation had wrongfully justified “the state’s religious discrimination.”
“Parents should not be punished for choosing a quality religious curriculum meeting the state’s standard that they teach to their own children in their own home just because it’s religious,” he added.
The Supreme Court is timetabled to renew its closed-door conferences to decide which cases to hear beginning Sept. 28, with its new term opening Oct. 5. A decision on whether the justices will take up Woolard v. Thurmond could come as soon as this fall, according to The Washington Examiner.
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