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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti will not intervene in an ongoing lawsuit over the state’s religious charter school ban, leaving the Knox County Board of Education to defend a state policy against claims of religious discrimination.
The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville, represented by an attorney currently working for Skrmetti’s office in a different case, sued the school district late last year in federal court.
The case could bring a fresh challenge to the religious charter issue that deadlocked the U.S. Supreme Court in 2025.
Though Wilberforce is not suing the state of Tennessee, it is challenging the constitutionality of Tennessee’s longstanding charter school law. Under federal regulations, state attorneys general must be notified and given the option to intervene in lawsuits with constitutional challenges.
Skrmetti declined to intervene earlier this month, according to court filings. His office did not comment on the filing but pointed to a November legal opinion Skrmetti wrote that questioned the constitutionality of Tennessee’s own law.
Skrmetti argued there was “no compelling interest” in excluding religious charter schools from participating in a “public benefit.”
In its lawsuit, Wilberforce focuses in part on Tennessee’s new voucher program, essentially arguing that the public education funds now flowing to private religious schools support the case that religious charters should be included in public funding.
“This enshrined hostility to religious charter schools stands in marked contrast to Tennessee’s recent support of religious schools through its Education Freedom Scholarship Program,” a Wilberforce attorney argued in court documents last year.
Gov. Bill Lee, who pushed for the voucher program to allow private religious schools to receive public dollars, demurred on Thursday when asked if he believes state law should be changed to allow religious charters.
“The Attorney General has the role in determining what’s constitutional, what should be law in the state,” Lee said. “I’d defer to him on that.”
Nonprofit sued days after registering with the state
Days after Skrmetti’s November legal opinion was published, Wilberforce sued the Knox County Board of Education in federal court, alleging explicit religious discrimination over local and state rules banning religious charter schools.
On Nov. 25, just four days after it registered as a nonprofit with the state, Wilberforce submitted a letter of intent to the Knox County Board of Education to indicate interest in opening an “explicitly Christian school” in 2027.
The board would not accept the letter, according to court documents, because Wilberforce would not affirm the state requirement that it be a nonsectarian and non-religious school.
Knox County attorneys say Wilberforce never completed a charter application, and therefore they haven’t been denied anything.
Last week, a federal judge denied Wilberforce’s request for a ruling that would immediately block the Knox County board from enforcing the state ban on religious charters. A trial on the issue is scheduled for January 2027.
Despite Skrmetti’s hands-off approach to the lawsuit, an attorney working with the attorney general’s office is currently representing Wilberforce in its lawsuit against the Tennessee school district.
In 2023, Lee appointed Cameron Norris, a Virginia-based attorney with the conservative law firm Consovoy McCarthy, to help defend Tennessee in a lawsuit over the state law banning gender transition treatments for minors.
Skrmetti’s office has continued to hire Norris as outside counsel in two cases since, according to records reviewed by Chalkbeat Tennessee. Norris currently earns $400 per hour, paid by public funds, to help Tennessee defend its criminal abortion ban against ongoing legal challenges.
A group of Knox County parents have joined the Knox County board to oppose Wilberforce’s lawsuit.
“I believe that public education is part of the common good and that maintaining the integrity of public education ensures that public schools remain appropriate for and welcoming to students of all faiths and backgrounds,” said Amanda Collins, a retired school psychologist whose three children either attend or attended Knox County public schools. “These fundamental tenets are at odds with a religious school.”
Melissa Brown is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact Melissa at mbrown@chalkbeat.org.
