On August 24, the Catholic public-interest law firm Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit against Chris Green, President of the Georgia Student Finance Commission, in his official capacity for the state.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three Catholic families regarding equal access to Georgia’s Promise Scholarship Program.
As Thomas More Society explains, the scholarship program “was designed to give families more say in their children’s education” but in order to access that financial support, the Catholic families would have had to place their children in a failing public school.
The scholarship, created by the Georgia legislature in 2024, makes available $6,500 per child for a family to send a child to a school of their choice. Prior to entering a school of choice, whether it is public, private, or home school, the child must be enrolled in a public school that has been designated as failing for two consecutive semesters.
“For Catholic families like the Tootles, Sandses, and McCalls, meeting Georgia’s requirements simply is not an option. Pulling their children out of an enriching Catholic educational environment and enrolling them in a failing public school violates their obligations as Catholic parents. It also violates their religious rights,” the plaintiffs explain.
“Thousands of secular families have already used the scholarship to withdraw their children from public schools and send them to private schools, including Catholic schools,” the statement from Thomas More Society notes.
“Georgia’s regulations already allow case-by-case exemptions from these requirements for secular applicants. Once a state opens the door to individualized exceptions, the lawsuit argues the First Amendment and Georgia’s own Religious Freedom Restoration Act bar it from refusing that same exception to families for religious reasons.”
The plaintiffs also filed an emergency motion in the DeKalb County Superior Court asking for a temporary restraining order in order to allow for the families to enroll in Catholic school for at least the upcoming spring semester, for which the application window is this November.
The plaintiffs were hoping for a quick ruling on that emergency motion prior to the August 31 application deadline for the current fall semester, but it does not appear a judge has ruled on that.
If the emergency motion is not granted in time for the November application window, the students may lose an entire year of school.
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