Brief of Amici Curiae Scholars for the Advancement of Children’s Constitutional Rights in Support of Respondents: St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy

This Court should consider those most directly impacted by the decision in this case: the intended beneficiaries of Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program (“UPK”), Colorado’s children. To paraphrase Shakespeare, though they be but little, they are constitutional rights-bearers and are thus entitled to be free from state-funded discrimination.

Amici are scholars of children and the law, education law, family law, and anti-discrimination law. Amici draw this Court’s attention to the significant harms children in the LGBT community would bear should Colorado be compelled to allow state-funded religious schools to discriminate against preschoolers. Exempting religious schools from the State’s equal-opportunity and antidiscrimination provisions would force Colorado to breach its statutory obligation under the UPK and infringe upon children’s First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. An exemption would deny these young learners access to a high-quality early childhood education and inflict educational, religious and spiritual, dignitary, familial, and psychological harms on them solely because of their or their parents’ LGBT identities.