NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti issued a legal opinion arguing the state law that requires charter schools to be “nonsectarian” and “nonreligious” likely violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
The provision banning religious charter schools was passed as part of the 2002 law that authorized charter schools in Tennessee.
The Attorney General’s legal opinion, filed late last month, cited multiple Supreme Court rulings that “held that excluding religious entities from a public benefit ‘solely because of their religious character’ penalizes free exercise and triggers the ‘most exacting scrutiny.’”
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Because the state rule forces religious groups to choose between being religious and accessing a public program, the Attorney General argued they almost certainly violate the Free Exercise Clause…