A Denver federal court decided that Colorado can’t punish a rural Christian preschool that participates in the state’s universal preschool program despite conflicts between its hiring practices and the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
The ruling allows the Darren Patterson Christian Academy, which runs Busy Bees Preschool in Buena Vista, to continue to receive state funding to participate in Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program, which guarantees every 4-year-old in the state at least 15 hours per week of free preschool.
The ruling is the second in Colorado on the issue of religious preschools participating in the state’s universal preschool program and whether they are allowed to exclude either LGBTQ+ families or staff when the schools are tax-payer funded.
The attorney general’s office had no comment on active litigation.
When the Darren Patterson Christian Academy joined the state’s UPK program, it signed Colorado’s non-discrimination agreement. But it argued it didn’t want to be forced to hire LGBTQ+ employees or other individuals who don’t share its Christian faith. It further argued that it shouldn’t have to change school policies based on the school’s religious beliefs about sexuality and gender — including those that relate to restroom usage, pronouns, dress codes, and student housing during expeditions and field trips.
The school is one of only a few Christian schools in Chaffee County, in west central Colorado.
The state argued that for the school to receive funding, it had to comply with the state’s anti-discrimination laws. The school, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, sued the Department of Early Childhood in 2023, which runs the UPK program, for not issuing it a religious exemption. It alleged the demand to change its religious practices infringed on its protected First Amendment rights.
In his 15-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term, said the preschool should continue to receive funding and be allowed to maintain its hiring practices in line with its religious beliefs.
"I do not doubt the harm that discrimination may cause to the precocious preschoolers who understand the concept, or that religious parents with gay or transgender children may suffer if the plaintiff is permitted to exclude them from its preschool. But the state’s effort to prevent that harm does not permit it to abridge plaintiff’s First Amendment rights,” he wrote.
The Alliance Defending Freedom said in a statement that the government can’t force a school to surrender its religious character and beliefs to participate in a public program.
“Darren Patterson Christian Academy has been serving Chaffee County families for over 40 years,” said attorney Jeremiah Galus. “Yet Colorado officials tried to force it to abandon its religious beliefs — the very reason parents choose to send their kids to the school — to receive critical state funding. The court’s ruling is a resounding win for First Amendment rights.”
The judge found that the Colorado Department of Early Childhood allows exemptions from “quality standards” to ensure there are different types of preschools — religious, home-based, and school or center-based — but offered “no convincing explanation” for penalizing the school for adhering to his religious beliefs.
“The fact that the state recognizes conditions could exist in which it would exempt a preschool from the quality standards, but does not consider Plaintiff’s religious convictions sufficiently compelling to do so here, triggers strict scrutiny.”
In a separate case ruling in June, a different federal judge ruled that Catholic preschools participating in the state’s UPK program can consider religion when enrolling families. The ruling, however, does not allow preschool providers to discriminate on the basis of other protected classes such as sexual orientation and gender identity, rejecting most of the claims made by two Catholic preschools that filed a lawsuit against the state in 2023. Lawyers for the preschools have appealed a portion of that ruling to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Nearly 40,000 children are currently participating in the statewide program. Fewer than 1,000 children attend 40 faith-based programs.
