Supreme Court won’t hear charter school bid to force girls to wear skirts
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The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review the case of a North Carolina charter school that wanted to force female students to wear skirts in the name of “chivalry,” letting stand a lower-court ruling that deemed the policy unconstitutional. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The move is a victory for civil liberties advocates and a blow to social conservatives who hoped that — after allowing public vouchers to be used at religious schools last year — the top U.S. court would exempt charter schools from constitutional protections. The case could have had far-reaching implications for charter schools, which operate in a gray area, functioning as public schools that are run by private organizations.
“If accepted, Charter Day School’s argument that it should be free to violate students’ constitutional rights would have … threatened the freedoms of 3.6 million public charter school students nationwide,” Ria Tabacco Mar of the American Civil Liberties Union said in an email. The ACLU litigated the case on behalf of two parents and one student who challenged the school dress code.
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In a statement, Charter Day founder Baker Mitchell called the declination “disappointing,” saying it leaves charter schools subject to “rules, regulations, and political machinations that have crippled government-run school systems” and threatens “the unique classical academic program that has served our students well for the past 24 years.”
Only public institutions can be sued for violating constitutional rights — which protect students from discrimination, censorship and being thrown out of school without a hearing. The high court has ruled that students cannot be forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, that undocumented students have the right to attend school, and that all students, regardless of race, have the right to an equal education.
The appellate court looked at the particulars of North Carolina’s charter school system, noting that state law explicitly describes charters as public schools open to all students, holds them to state board of education standards and gives charter school employees government benefits. Ninety-five percent of Charter Day’s funding comes from public sources, the court noted.
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While the arrangement varies state to state, charter schools in other states are subject to similar requirements. Ten states, led by Texas, joined Charter Day in asking the Supreme Court to take up the case and rule that public charter schools are not covered by the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment. So did multiple religious organizations, which expressed concern about challenges to the practices of faith-based adoption agencies, charities and health-care providers.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court not to upend the decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, saying in a brief that a ruling in favor of Charter Day “would allow States to evade constitutional constraints by delegating core governmental functions to private entities.”
The administration also drew a distinction between Charter Day and a Christian school in Maine that was allowed to take federal funds by the Supreme Court in 2002. Maine has a history of “relying on private schools to educate residents in sparsely populated areas” while letting those institutions remain independent, the solicitor general’s office said. North Carolina does not.
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Conservatives in several states have successfully pushed to expand programs that send public money to religious schools through voucher programs, which give families money and allow them to spend it on a private institution of their choice. But states have differed on how — or whether — they regulate private schools, including whether they have to provide special-education services, accept all students or abide by nondiscrimination laws. Advocates of religious education hoped the Supreme Court would provide a pathway for the creation of publicly funded religious charter schools, which would be free to proselytize without running afoul of the principle of separation of church and state.
Earlier this month, as the high court was reviewing the North Carolina case, Oklahoma approved the nation’s first religious charter school, set to open next year. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School intends to serve “as a genuine instrument of the Church” and only abide by federal civil rights laws that do not conflict with church doctrine. Even state officials in the deep-red state were conflicted about the charter; the attorney general called it a gross violation of church and state that would compel approval of other schools that “most Oklahomans would consider reprehensible and unworthy of public funding.”
Even if the federal courts had ruled that Charter Day was not a state actor, the school may have been forced to give up the skirt policy. Left open by the 4th Circuit was whether the dress code violated Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in federally funded schools.
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Keely Burks was in seventh grade when she circulated a petition at school challenging the skirt policy. Burks said in a statement as part of the case that wearing a skirt left her cold in the winter and limited her ability to sit or move comfortably year-round. During fire drills, she added, boys would joke about how they could see up her and other girls’ skirts.
A teacher took the petition away. The next year, Burks joined with the parents of two other children to sue the school. Bonnie Peltier sued on behalf of her 5-year-old daughter, who she said was constricted by skirts. When she asked Mitchell to explain the rationale for the policy, he replied that the goal was “to preserve chivalry and respect among young women and men.” Boys, he said, are required “to hold the door open for the young ladies and to carry an umbrella” to protect girls from the rain.
“I want [my daughter] to grow up knowing that she is as capable as her male classmates, that she can achieve as much as her male classmates can, and that she does not need her male classmates to protect her,” Peltier wrote in the suit.
Mitchell now operates four schools in southeastern North Carolina under the name Classical Charter Schools of America. The schools began allowing female students to wear pants last year in compliance with the 4th Circuit ruling.
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Source: The Washington Post
