Challenging Religious Freedom

Moody Bible Institute is a small Christian College just west of downtown Chicago. Moody has been in existence since the early 1900s. The school’s mission has never wavered. It started as an evangelical institution and remains one to this day.  On their website, they state: “At Moody, ministry and career are a single focus. We train men and women to make serving Christ their lifelong pursuit, no matter where He calls them.”

Although Moody started as an Evangelical Christian College, it has expanded its offerings to include Elementary Education. In 2024, it was approved by the Illinois State Board of Education. The approval acknowledges that the Elementary Education Program aligns with other colleges and universities offering the same degree. The quality and vigor of the curriculum are not the problem. The problem is religious discrimination by another educational entity, the Chicago Public Schools. Moody has filed suit in Federal Court.

The problem started when students from Moody, seeking to complete their degree requirements, were denied by the Board of the Chicago Public Schools the opportunity to participate in a long-standing student-teaching practice. The Chicago Public Schools demanded that Moody adjust its hiring practices before it would accept one of their students.

The Chicago Public School would only admit these students if its college, Moody, “surrender its legal rights to make its own employment decisions based on religious faith”. The suit goes on to further accuse the Chicago Public Schools of insisting that Moody “sign agreements with employment nondiscrimination provisions that forbid Moody from employing only those who share and live out its faith.”

The overreach of the Chicago Public Schools is astounding. They claim that, for one of their students to teach in their schools, Moody must change its mission statement and hiring practices to align with theirs. Moody claims the Supreme Court has already prohibited this practice along with the First Amendment and the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

When you hear a story such as this, you can’t help but question whether the Chicago Public Schools would hold the same position if students came from a Muslim institution. By attempting to limit these evangelical future teachers, the Chicago Public Schools, a public entity, has the power to discriminate against Christians.

Instead of barring faith-based student teachers from their schools, they should take a better look at how miserably they are doing the job of educating students.  State test scores indicated fewer than 1 in 3 students could read, and fewer than 1 in 5 were proficient in math at their grade level. The levels decreased among 11th graders, with 1 in 4 reading at grade level, and math scores declined by nearly a point.

With such dismal results, the Chicago Public Schools are failing. They have been for years because public education across the country is no longer dedicated to educating children; it’s more about politics. Public schools, which hide behind the guise of education, are actually political machines of the progressive movement owned by the Democratic Party. Here is the real issue in this case, and it serves as an individual instance of the fight between freedom and governmental power to squash it. It is replayed in many cases presented to the court outside of this one, and those decisions dramatically influence America’s future.

Alliance Supporting Freedom Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus summed up the case. “Chicago desperately needs more teachers to fill hundreds of vacancies, but public school administrators are putting personal agendas ahead of the needs of families.”

.