Chicago Public Schools will no longer bar students from Moody Bible Institute from participating in its student-teaching program, after the district settled a religious discrimination case that should never have been necessary in the first place.
The resolution, announced Thursday, ends a lawsuit Moody filed against the Chicago Board of Education in November. The Bible college, located in Chicago, had alleged that CPS blocked its students from the program because the school maintains faith-based hiring practices. Alliance Defending Freedom, the Christian legal group representing Moody, filed a stipulated dismissal in the case the same day.
Under the settlement, CPS agreed to modify its Student Teacher Internship Agreement to recognize Moody's right to maintain those hiring practices. The district now lists Moody as an approved university partner on its website.
According to Fox News, the original dispute centered on two nondiscrimination agreements CPS required Moody to sign as a condition of participation. According to the complaint filed in the case:
"As a condition of participation, Chicago Public Schools insists that Moody sign agreements with employment nondiscrimination provisions that forbid Moody from employing only those who share and live out its faith."
The complaint called the requirement "unlawful." And it was. Religious organizations have a well-established constitutional right to hire employees who share their faith and live according to their religious convictions. This isn't a loophole. It's a protection rooted in the First Amendment and affirmed repeatedly by the courts.
CPS wasn't asking Moody to change how it treated student-teachers inside public school classrooms. It was demanding that Moody change its own internal hiring practices, practices that have nothing to do with how a student-teacher conducts a lesson on long division. The district tried to use access to a public program as leverage to reshape a religious institution's faith commitments.
That's not nondiscrimination. That's coercion.
The irony here is hard to overstate. Chicago Public Schools is not exactly drowning in surplus educators. ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus made the obvious point in a press release:
"Chicago desperately needs more teachers to fill hundreds of vacancies, and Moody's students will be well-equipped and qualified to help meet that need."
Hundreds of vacancies. And CPS chose to exclude a pipeline of eager, trained student-teachers because of the religious beliefs of the institution that prepared them. Not because of their qualifications. Not because of their classroom performance. Because of the faith commitments of their college.
This is the pattern with progressive bureaucracies. The stated priority is always children, always equity, always meeting the needs of underserved communities. But the operational priority is ideological conformity. When those two things conflict, the children lose every time.
Chicago's public schools have struggled for years with staffing shortages, low test scores, and a teacher pipeline that can't keep up with attrition. Turning away qualified candidates because their college takes the Bible seriously is a luxury a failing district cannot afford.
To its credit, CPS ultimately backed down. The district's statement to Fox News Digital framed the resolution diplomatically:
"To resolve this matter in a mutually-acceptable way, the District and the Moody Bible Institute collaborated to modify the student teaching agreement, ensuring it aligns with the constitutional rights of faith-based organizations."
Note the passive language. CPS "collaborated" to ensure the agreement "aligns with constitutional rights." Translation: CPS dropped an unconstitutional demand after getting sued. That's not collaboration. That's compliance.
Moody Provost Dr. Tim Sisk struck a more direct tone:
"We are deeply grateful that a resolution has been reached affirming our constitutional right to hire individuals who are aligned with our core mission and biblical values."
He added that Moody's Elementary Education students are "eager and well-prepared" to participate in the program, calling student teaching "an essential and formative part of their journey toward becoming effective educators."
This case is worth watching not because of its complexity but because of its simplicity. A public school district tried to force a religious college to abandon its hiring standards as the price of participation in a public program. The college said no. It sued. It won.
But how many institutions don't have the resources to fight? How many small Christian colleges, religious nonprofits, or faith-based organizations quietly sign agreements that compromise their convictions because they can't afford a legal battle with a government entity?
Galus seemed to have that broader audience in mind:
"We're hopeful other public officials will take note that they can't inject themselves illegally and unconstitutionally into a religious non-profit's hiring practices."
That warning extends well beyond Chicago. Across the country, progressive officials have treated religious liberty as a carve-out to be tolerated rather than a right to be respected. They embed ideological conditions into contracts, partnerships, and licensing requirements, then act surprised when someone pushes back.
The strategy is quiet and bureaucratic. No one passes a law saying "Bible colleges can't participate." They just drafted an agreement with terms they know a Bible college cannot sign. When the college walks away, the officials shrug and say it was the college's choice.
Moody refused to play along. And Chicago's children will be better for it.