Court allows Tenn. parents to intervene in charter school case

FFRF, others to represent the five local taxpayers

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and several other groups are representing five taxpayers in Knox County, Tenn., to intervene in a lawsuit against a proposed religious public school.

The five intervenors, who support public education and state/church separation, were granted permission by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee to join the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville v. Knox County Board of Education, was filed in November 2025 by a religious organization that wants to run a public charter school — funded by taxpayers — that, according to the school’s own complaint, would provide an “explicitly biblical and Christian education.”

In the case, the court determined that these taxpayers — all parents of current or former Knox County public school students — had a legal right to participate in the lawsuit. These taxpayers, who are also parents of current or former Knox County public school students, are now intervenor-defendants in the lawsuit.

In response to their motion filed in late January, the court ruled that the parent taxpayers “demonstrated direct and concrete interests in: (1) preventing the potential unlawful use of taxpayer funds to establish religion and (2) ensuring that their children’s education is not diminished by the diversion of funds to religious schools.”

The court also noted the serious stakes of the case and the fact that no other party planned to defend the constitutionality of Tennessee law forbidding religious charter schools. As a result, the court determined that these taxpayers had a legal right to participate in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was initially filed after Wilberforce Academy sought to open as a publicly funded charter school with a religious mission. Knox County Schools previously denied the application, citing state law that bars religious charter schools.

The intervenors are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Education Law Center, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the law firm Morrison Foerster pro bono. The counsel team issued the following statement:

“There is no question that Knox County taxpayers, including our clients, have a substantial interest in preventing their tax dollars from illegally funding a religious public school. Likewise, public school parents have a clear interest in preventing already-scarce funding from being diverted away from their children’s schools to pay for religious instruction.

“We are pleased that neither side opposed our clients’ participation in the Wilberforce Academy lawsuit, and that the court immediately recognized our clients’ right to assert a vigorous defense of the laws forbidding religious public education.

“Someone needs to stand up for the cherished and longstanding American principle of church-state separation and for the public schools that are the cornerstone of our democracy. We’re proud to represent these clients, who have stepped up to do just that.”