Supreme Court Hears Colorado Preschool Case Over Catholic Schools and Nondiscrimination Rules

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, a case over whether Colorado may exclude Catholic schools from its state-funded preschool program because they will not comply with equal-opportunity requirements. The Trump administration joined the Archdiocese of Denver in urging the justices to overturn a ruling that allowed the exclusion. Colorado's program provides state-funded preschool to all children, families choose the school, and private religious schools are eligible. State law, however, bars any school receiving the funding from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The Catholic-identified plaintiffs want to exclude children of same-sex couples and still receive the funds. By one account of the argument, at least five justices appeared hostile to Colorado's policy, though Chief Justice John Roberts briefly seemed open to upholding it.

Vox, on the left, leads with its reading of the argument. Its headline says the Court is eager to make taxpayers fund anti-LGBTQ schools. It centers gay families and the Roberts moment, and it argues that religious conservatives always win and that the Court's doctrines are incoherent. The Federalist, on the right, frames the case as whether Colorado can make Christian schools enroll trans children to get funding. It presents the case as a chance to continue a broad correction in religious liberty law. Both sides agree on the core dispute, funding tied to nondiscrimination rules, but they differ on who is at stake: LGBTQ families on the left, Christian schools and gender identity on the right. AP, in the alternative group, reports the Trump administration's role and the equal-opportunity dispute without either framing. Two other items in this set, from The New York Times and The Times of Israel, cover a separate matter: a U.K. Supreme Court hearing on the ban on Palestine Action.