A Judge Opens the Door to a Religious Charter School

A federal judge in Knoxville has ruled for a Christian academy that wants to run a public charter school, taking direct aim at Tennessee’s law that charter schools must be nonreligious. The ruling was reported November 7 in a Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville press release, and confirmed by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which opposes the outcome. Quoted in the release, the court said: “the First Amendment does not permit the state to require an organization to abandon its religious beliefs or practices as the price of participating in a public benefit program.”

Wilberforce is a nonprofit that wants to open a tuition-free Christian charter school in Knox County, starting with kindergarten through third grade and growing to eighth grade. Tennessee law, in Tennessee Code section 49-13-1-111, requires charter schools to operate as nonsectarian and nonreligious. In November 2025, Wilberforce told the Knox County Board of Education it intended to apply for 2027–28. It could not sign the form affirming it was not a religious school, the board treated its letter as incomplete, and Wilberforce sued on November 30, 2025. In May, Judge Charles Atchley Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee refused to dismiss the case, ruling Wilberforce did not have to submit an application to challenge the barrier.

Two limits matter. First, the relief Wilberforce originally sought was narrow: the opportunity to take part in the application process on the same footing as secular organizations, not a court order granting it a charter. The Knox County board still authorizes charter schools. Second, Tennessee’s attorney general declined to intervene to defend the law, after publishing an opinion arguing there was no compelling interest in excluding religious charter schools from a public benefit. The law was defended instead by the local board and intervening parents and groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The operating questions come next, because a charter school is a public school. It must admit students by lottery when oversubscribed, take state assessments, and owe students with disabilities a free appropriate public education under IDEA and Section 504. Wilberforce says its school will be open to every eligible student regardless of faith, and no student will be required to affirm Christian doctrine or take part in Christian worship. Whether that holds in admissions, hiring, and services is what an authorization process — and any appeal — would test.

Takeaway: This ruling does not open a school or grant a charter. It removes, as applied to Wilberforce, the nonreligious barrier to applying. Watch next: whether Wilberforce files an application, how the Knox County board decides it, and whether the ruling is appealed.

Sources: Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville press release issued November 7, 2026, and the confirming statement from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools — both as reported in today’s episode, which publishes its sources in its episode description; Tennessee Code section 49-13-1-111.