Top 10 U.S. Policy Priorities for Catholic Education

Since the start of the Obama administration in 2009, Catholic education in the United States has been under serious threat from federal policies, regulations, legislation, and court rulings challenging Catholic morals and religious freedom. The threats will continue, but there is reason for hope in the coming years!

Without sanction by Congress or the Supreme Court, the Biden administration sought by dictatorial mandate to redefine the meaning of “sex discrimination” in education. To force a new definition of “sex” on schools and colleges, and especially to bully Catholic educators into compliance, was clearly beyond the Administration’s proper scope of authority.

Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued important rulings increasing protection for Catholic education. Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru (2020) broadens the definition of the “ministerial exception,” a First Amendment protection against federal courts interfering in religious organizations’ employment decisions. The case concerned a Catholic school teacher, but the exception has since been applied to school leaders and counselors.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), the Court effectively nullified anti-Catholic “Blaine amendments” in state constitutions, ensuring that Catholic schools and colleges have equal access to public benefits. This helped open the door wider to school choice programs, which are increasing in many states.

Nevertheless, challenges remain. Some federal courts have ignored or undermined Supreme Court precedent, and the scope of the “ministerial exception”—which protects religious schools and colleges from lawsuits concerning employees engaged in religious teaching—is still hotly debated in the courts. Many states are hostile to Catholic moral values, and Catholic education faces the same sort of harassment that marked the Biden administration.

Amid all of this, there is good reason to hope that the next few years will present new opportunities for the growth of faithful Newman Guide education. Catholic families and educators look to the White House, Congress, and federal courts to provide much-needed relief for Catholic education and to restore a firm commitment to the First Amendment’s protections for religious exercise and free speech.

Recommendations for federal policy

Prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, The Cardinal Newman Society submitted a list of 42 policy priorities for Catholic education to his transition team, key members of Congress, and Washington, D.C., policy experts. The full proposal is posted on our website, but most of it is summarized in the following 10 key priorities:

1. Restore the meaning of “sex”: The radical drive for same-sex marriage and then gender ideology has severely distorted federal civil rights laws and put women and Catholic education in jeopardy. This needs to be reversed.

Tragically, the U.S. Supreme Court yielded to gender ideology in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia (2020). However, although the Court redefined “sex discrimination” to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” the ruling applied only to hiring and firing decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law contains an exemption for religious employers that can protect Catholic education, as long as school and college leaders make employment decisions with explicit devotion to Catholic teaching and evangelization.

The Biden administration and some federal courts have sought instead to expand Bostock’s flawed rationale to all federal law and programs. They have tried to mandate gender ideology in education, housing, public accommodations, federally funded programs, and disability laws. (See sidebar.) In so doing, they would effectively erase religious exemptions protecting Catholic education.

Catholic educators should urge Congress and the Trump administration to restore the definitions of “sex,” “male,” and “female” to agree with biological reality, not “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” This begins with revoking President Biden’s Executive Order 13988 (“Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation”), Executive Order 14020 (establishing the Gender Policy Council), and any other “dear colleague” letter, administrative rule, executive order, or regulation that attempts to redefine “sex.”

Most importantly for Catholic schools and colleges, the new Administration should withdraw and replace the Biden administration’s 2024 regulation (89 FR 33474) imposing gender ideology under Title IX, the portion of the Civil Rights Act that protects girls and women in education. Whatever the Supreme Court’s reason for extending gender ideology to employment decisions, Title IX was clearly intended to protect girls in athletics, restrooms, locker rooms, admissions, etc., and it allows for many appropriate practices separating males from females.

Congress should go further by amending Title IX and other civil rights laws to clarify the meaning of sex discrimination, including Title VII to nullify the Bostock ruling.

1. Protect religious exemptions: Catholic educators should insist that Congress and the Trump administration defend and expand legal exemptions to federal civil rights laws for religious education when the laws interfere with legitimate religious purposes and practices. This protects Catholic schools and colleges, even when a future administration attempts to distort the laws’ application.

In particular, the Administration should oppose attempts by activists to undermine or repeal the Title IX exemption for religious schools and colleges. It should also end the Education Department’s policy of approving or denying advance determinations whether religious institutions qualify for religious exemptions to Title IX; this is a matter for the courts and should be decided according to each particular circumstance. The Trump administration should delete the archived list of institutions that the Obama administration published in 2016 to “shame” religious colleges claiming the exemption.

3. Preserve the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): Despite near-unanimous, bipartisan support when RFRA became law in 1993, abortion and gender ideology activists have sought to undermine or repeal it to force their radical agendas on churches and religious organizations. RFRA prevents a law from restricting religious freedom unless there is no less restrictive means of achieving its purpose. It has been a powerful defense for Catholic education. The Trump administration and Congress should fight any legislation that includes exceptions to RFRA protections.
4. Halt discrimination against religion: The Trump administration and Congress should act to ban federal and state discrimination against religious believers and religious organizations—including Catholic education—on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions about abortion, contraception, gender, in vitro fertilization, marriage, sexual orientation, or sexual relations. Catholic education should have equal access to public funds available to secular education.

1. End immoral insurance mandates: The Biden administration’s abuse of the Affordable Care Act to force its radical pro-abortion and LGBT agenda on Americans, even to the point of requiring Catholic education to violate moral principles, must be ended. During the 2024 campaign, President Trump indicated support for insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, which is unacceptable to faithful Catholic schools and colleges.

By executive order and regulation, the Trump administration should oppose and reverse dictatorial mandates for health insurance coverage for non-essential, harmful, and immoral services including abortion, contraception, “gender-transition” hormones and surgery, in vitro fertilization, and sterilization.

This includes rescinding and replace the Biden administration’s 2024 regulation (89 FR 37522) implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which interprets sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” and thereby mandates coverage for “gender-affirming care,” which may include “gender-transition” hormones and surgery.

Congress should amend Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that religious believers and organizations—including Catholic education—can opt out of health insurance coverage for services that violate deeply held religious and moral beliefs, such as abortion, contraception, “gender-transition” hormones and surgery, in vitro fertilization, and sterilization.

1. Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education: In its short lifespan since 1976, the Education Department has presided over the decline of American education, impacting many Catholic families in public schools and reinforcing a near-monopoly of taxpayer-funded secular education. At minimum, the Trump administration and Congress should convert federal funds to block grants allowing flexibility and school choice programs in the states. They should also end the Department’s interference with teacher training programs, accreditation, education standards, and testing.
2. Fund school choice: The Trump administration and Congress should incentivize states to adopt school choice policies and funding—such as education savings accounts, tax credits, and vouchers—to help children attend the school or homeschool of their parent’s choice, including Catholic education. They should establish universal savings plans to increase savings limits and allow spending for elementary and secondary education expenses, including homeschooling, in addition to higher education—and ensure that families have equal access to funds for Catholic education. Congress should also increase tax credits for education expenses including homeschooling, increase the federal child tax credit, and increase the child’s age limit to 17.

1. Reform accreditation: The Trump administration and Congress should amend the Higher Education Act to stop requiring accreditation of colleges to receive Title IV student aid, end the Education Department’s approval of accrediting agencies, exempt religious education from accreditation standards and criteria that would compromise an institution’s religious beliefs and governance, ensure that Title IV student aid is not considered federal support that triggers Title IX enforcement, and allow a private right of action against an accreditor by a college that is unjustly discriminated against in the course of accreditation.
2. Strengthen the federal courts: Appoint federal judges with clear records of conformity with the First Amendment, ministerial exception, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and natural law principles of conscience and religious freedom. The U.S. Supreme Court has been a bulwark against violations of religious freedom, but the Biden administration appointed hundreds of federal judges, and Catholic education is likely to face difficulties in many federal courts. Protecting the Supreme Court and strengthening other federal courts must be a top priority for the Trump administration.
3. Strengthen federal independent agencies: The Trump administration should appoint commissioners to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who respect religious freedom and will not misinterpret sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation” and “gender ideology.” Also appoint commissioners to the National Labor Relations Board who respect religious freedom and will uphold the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago (1979), which forbade the NLRB from interfering in labor organizing at religious schools and colleges as a violation of the First Amendment.

Assault on Civil Rights

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans unjust discrimination based on religion, race, color, or national origin in public accommodations (Title II), state and municipal facilities (Title III), public education (Title IV), federally funded programs (Title VI), and employment (Title VII).

Only Title VII, regarding employment, also includes a ban on sex discrimination. In 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments to ban sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges. These laws were clearly intended to protect especially women and girls from unjust discrimination.

Today, however, activists for abortion and gender ideology seek to redefine “sex” to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” and to add these categories to all the civil rights laws. This would effectively force gender ideology on Catholic education because only Title VII and Title IX include exemptions for religious organizations. While no Catholic school or college would wish the freedom to discriminate unjustly, they must be able to uphold Catholic teaching on abortion, contraception, sexuality, gender, and marriage—a right protected by the First Amendment.