Knoxville Judge Rules Tennessee Cannot Bar Wilberforce Academy for Being Religious
A federal judge in Knoxville has ruled that Tennessee cannot shut The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville out of the state's charter school program because the school it wants to open would be Christian. The ruling is real, and it is important. It is also narrower than some headlines make it sound.
On Friday, November 6, 2026, U.S. District Judge Charles E. Atchley Jr. of the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville entered a memorandum opinion and a final judgment in The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville v. Knox County Board of Education, No. 3:25-cv-584. This was not a temporary order while the case continued. It was a final judgment after summary judgment briefing.
The court declared that Tennessee Code Annotated section 49-13-111(a)(2), the part of the Tennessee Public Charter Schools Act that requires a charter school to operate as a "public, nonsectarian, nonreligious" school, is unconstitutional as applied to Wilberforce under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The court then permanently enjoined the Knox County Board of Education from enforcing that requirement against Wilberforce in all future application cycles. The judge denied Wilberforce's request for nominal damages.
"The First Amendment does not permit Tennessee to open its charter school program to private participants and then exclude them because they seek to exercise their religion," Atchley wrote. "That is discrimination against religion." He added that Tennessee "retains broad authority to structure its public-education system" and "need not create a charter school program at all." But once the State makes that opportunity generally available to private participants, "the State cannot condition participation on the surrender of a constitutionally protected right, no matter how the program is described."
That is the heart of the case, and it follows the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin. In Carson, the Court held that Maine could not keep religious schools out of a generally available tuition assistance program. Atchley also pointed to Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021) to show that a public program can be a public benefit even when it works through a contract, not only through a check.
Wilberforce is a religious nonprofit that wants to operate a Christian charter school in Knox County. According to the opinion, it incorporated under Tennessee law on November 21, 2025, submitted a letter of intent on November 25, 2025, for a planned opening in the 2027 to 2028 school year, and filed suit on November 30, 2025. It later completed a 279 page application, at a consultant cost the court recorded as $140,000, but it did not file that application before the February 1, 2026 deadline because the state form required it to affirm that the school would operate as a "nonsectarian, non-religious public school." The court found that applying under that condition would have been futile.
The Tennessee General Assembly did change the law in 2026 to let religious nonprofit organizations sponsor charter schools. The court cited Public Chapter 1128 for that amendment. What remained on the books, and what the court blocked as applied to Wilberforce, was the requirement that the school itself operate as nonsectarian and nonreligious.
The injunction runs against the Knox County Board of Education, the named authorizer in this case. The declaration is as applied to Wilberforce. This is not a U.S. Supreme Court decision, and it is not a ruling that a Christian charter school has already been approved or opened. Judge Atchley said so plainly: the injunction "does not mean that KCBE will ultimately approve Wilberforce's application." The board "may find other nondiscriminatory reasons to deny Wilberforce from operating a charter school." It simply cannot deny the application because of the Act's nonsectarian requirement.
The court's federal analysis also rejected the claim that a private nonprofit becomes a government actor merely by running a Tennessee charter school. Atchley wrote that a State cannot "transform a private entity into a government actor simply by labeling it a public institution or incorporating it into a statutory scheme." That conclusion was reached for the First Amendment question before him. It does not itself open the school, fund the school, or settle every dispute about how Tennessee law describes charter schools.
Wilberforce's own site, Wilberforce Academy, describes a tuition free, Christ centered school that would welcome students from all Knox County neighborhoods, income levels, and backgrounds, with admission open to any student eligible for public school enrollment. The school says it would begin with kindergarten through third grade and add a grade each year through eighth grade, and that Christian formation would be woven through school life, including Bible instruction, prayer, and the study of Scripture. Those are the school's stated aims. They are not findings that the court has already authorized a campus to open.
Christians should care about this case because it touches a simple question of justice. If the State invites private organizations to apply for a public program, it should not make the surrender of faith the price of entry. "The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works" (Psalm 145:17). A government that funds or authorizes private participants in education is not required to create such a program. Once it does, it should not punish an applicant for refusing to pretend that Christ is irrelevant to the school it hopes to run.
The judgment can still be reviewed. An appeal from this district court would go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. As of November 11, 2026, the public copies of the docket available for this report end with the November 6 opinion and judgment. The ruling is a genuine religious liberty decision in one federal district, for one applicant, against one school board's use of one statutory requirement. That is enough to take seriously, and it is enough to describe accurately.
Sources
Memorandum Opinion and Order, The Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville v. Knox County Board of Education, No. 3:25-cv-584, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, Document 156, filed November 6, 2026 (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tned.122190/gov.uscourts.tned.122190.156.0.pdf).
Final Judgment, same case, Document 157, filed November 6, 2026 (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tned.122190/gov.uscourts.tned.122190.157.0.pdf).
Wilberforce Academy (https://www.wilberforceknox.org/) and About page (https://www.wilberforceknox.org/about-1).
Ryan Foley, "Tennessee's ban on religious charter schools unconstitutional, judge rules," The Christian Post, November 10, 2026 (https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-charter-school-wins-major-religious-liberty-victory.html).
Photo: The Howard H. Baker Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Knoxville, by Antony-22, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Howard_H._Baker,_Jr._U.S._Courthouse_2025a.jpg. The photo shows the courthouse, not a hearing in this case.
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