State-Funded School Orders Girls to Break Up: Part of Growing U.S. Trend

Segregation academies are nothing new, but taxpayer support for them is both new and disturbing

Republican Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee is launching an ambitious effort to take school choice statewide on Tuesday, and he’ll have some company for the announcement in Nashville.

With Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in tow, along with supportive legislators and families, Lee is announcing the Education Freedom Scholarship Act, which his office says will “extend school choice to every family across rural and urban Tennessee communities, putting parents at the forefront of their child’s education.” Sanders signed an expansive school choice voucher bill into law for Arkansas in March.

— Excerpt from Fox News reporting yesterday

Have you heard about “school choice?” It’s an umbrella term meaning anything from states supporting homeschooling, to states encouraging the growth of public charter schools, to states diverting tax money from public-school districts to private schools via tuition vouchers.

Voucher programs are exploding in popularity across the U.S., but critics complain that they undermine public education by diverting funding to private schools that don’t admit students with disabilities and that cherry pick academically gifted students — to the detriment of public-school kids who remain in underfunded, overcrowded classrooms. They note that while some voucher programs arose to help economically disadvantaged students, they’re effectively degrading the overall quality of public education.

That’s a critical point we need to address as a society, but I write today to protest voucher programs for a different critical reason: that they act as a workaround for parents who want their schools to be legally permitted to exclude and discriminate against minority children.

Voucher schools are often segregation academies in reality

First, as Allison Wiltz wrote last week in, How “School Choice” Became a Racist Smoke Screen For White Flight,” the school-choice movement was born in the days of court-ordered desegregation. There’s a phrase for private schools that exist largely to keep Black children out: Segregation academies.

As Kathryn J. Edin (Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University) noted in The Daily Beast on Saturday, segregation academies are still going strong in many parts of the U.S. In Segregation Academies Show Us the Ugly Side of Vouchers, she wrote that the racist intent behind many voucher programs “is not subtle.”

For those who’d like a deeper dive into the racism of segregation academies and the harm of school-voucher programs, Dr. Edin and two colleagues just published a full book treatment, The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America.

Second, and the reason I’m writing this story, is that today’s segregation academies often exist (without apology) to exclude and discriminate against LGBTQ students and against students whose parents are LGBTQ — despite the fact that discriminating against queer kids in education is a clear violation of federal law and many state laws.

Let’s visit the U.S. Midwest and one such segregation academy

So, this happened in Wisconsin. Two high school students walked into the dean’s office several weeks before they were scheduled to graduate last summer. Both had grades that put them near the top of their highly competitive class at their high-performing school. One was the cheerleading captain. The other was a star basketball player and student-council member who’d been voted onto the homecoming court.

Each had already earned admission to selective universities contingent on graduating on schedule. Each had already begun piecing together scholarship packages to help pay their tuition.

Each was called to the office separately. Neither had reason to worry, but both would leave in a state of shock and fear.

The dean hadn’t summoned them to praise their accomplishments or support their education goals. He threatened to expel them without diplomas. If carried out, his threat would effectively wreck their university admissions and ruin the next couple years of their lives.

Then the dean made intrusive (creepy, really) demands of the teens that shocked much of their community and shocked me when I read about it.

You see, the basketball player was also the publicly funded school’s homecoming queen. Both students are girls, and campus rumor had it that they were dating, that they might have told a friend or three that they were lesbians. The dean told the girls that he would not tolerate “homosexual behavior” on or off campus. He said that if they wished to graduate, they must break up with each other and agree to counseling by a pastor.

Then he phoned both girls’ parents and repeated the rumors, outing them. More on what happened next in a moment, and it’s not all bad.

But first, let’s talk about how publicly funded schools can get away with abusing LGBTQ young people like this, and why such incidents are becoming more common across the United States.

Does this kind of anti-LGBTQ discrimination feel straight out of the 1970s?

Actually, it doesn’t to me, and I should know. I went to a public high school in the late 70s and early 80s in a small, very conservative Midwestern town, but even then, no school administrator would have dared treat a student the way that dean treated those girls. Maybe I’m wrong, but if my principal had called me in and tried to interfere in my intimate life — had he taken an interest in who I was dating or ordered me to stop dating — I suppose he would have lost his job PDQ.

I wasn’t out as gay in high school, and I didn’t have a boyfriend, but even then I understood that my personal life belonged to me alone — that I enjoyed certain inalienable human rights that no agent of the state (like a public school administrator) could interfere with.

If my principal had punished me for being gay, I’m reasonably certain my community would have told him to get back in his lane.

After all, public schools are for everyone. Every child in the United States, supposedly, has the right to a free, quality education funded by taxpayers.

And guess what? That applies especially to Wisconsin!

The Badger State pioneered protecting human rights for LGBTQ people in 1982, when it became the first U.S. state to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in both the public and private sectors. Today, expelling a student from a public school for being transgender or gay is thoroughly against the law in Wisconsin. Disciplining a student in any other way for being transgender or gay is thoroughly illegal.

So what’s going on?

Students of FVL will be permitted to hold hands with members of the opposite sex while at school. Any other public displays of affection are prohibited, and appropriate corrective and disciplinary measures will be taken.

The Bible forbids all sexual activity apart from the Biblical definition of marriage. If the knowledge of sexual misconduct becomes public (e.g. sexual intercourse, oral sex, “sexting,” homosexual behavior, living together, pornography, etc.) on or off campus, will be treated as a serious violation of God’s will and may be grounds for disciplinary action or expulsion.

— from the Fox Valley Lutheran High School handbook

The publicly funded Wisconsin school in question is Fox Valley Lutheran, which receives the bulk of their income from at least two of four different tuition-voucher programs. In essence, parents sign their kids up for Fox Valley and then Wisconsin taxpayers pick up most or all the tuition.

Like voucher programs across the U.S., Wisconsin’s began in the early 1990s with the noblest of intentions. The idea was that the state would pay for kids of impoverished backgrounds to attend high-performing private schools — to give them a boost in life. (Actually, it was a couple major left-leaning cities at first. The Wisconsin state government got involved two or three years later. You can read the full history here.)

But today, most participating schools in Wisconsin are private religious schools with students who are mostly not from low-income families. According to the Milwaukee Journal, “Some 383 voucher schools will receive an estimated $574 million in taxpayer money in the 2023–24 school year,” and “95% of voucher schools are religious.” All of those schools are considered private even when all or most of their revenue comes directly from the public purse.

Because of their quasi-private status, they get a free pass to discriminate:

Public schools in Wisconsin are prohibited from discriminating against students on the basis of sex, pregnancy, marital or parental status or sexual orientation. Private voucher schools are allowed to circumvent these anti-discrimination measures. — Milwaukee Journal

Wisconsin allows religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ students. So does Title IX, the federal education law that prohibits discrimination against transgender and gay students but grants nearly automatic exemptions to religious schools. (The U.S. Department of Education has never denied a Title IX exemption request from a religious school.)

Wisconsin taxpayers are being forced to fund discrimination, according to journalists at Wisconsin Watch, who note that voucher schools are increasingly formulating explicit policies targeting LGBTQ students, adding that transgender students are “special targets.” This is at a cost of half a billion dollars to taxpayers per year, a figure that is rising rapidly and is expected to skyrocket in 2026 when participation-percentage restrictions will end.

Arkansas is promoting a segregation academy sponsored by the granddaddy of segregation academies, Bob Jones University

As the Arkansas Times reported last week, it’s “unusual for the state’s education department to use public resources to create such an explicit advertisement for a private school.” That’s a reference to the state producing a video promoting Cornerstone Christian Academy, a K-12 private school participating in the state’s new voucher program.

Cornerstone uses a curriculum developed by Bob Jones University that teaches that the universe is 6,000 years old or less, that evolution is a “false theory” and that Noah’s Flood literally happened and created the Grand Canyon. It’s bad enough that Arkansas taxpayers are now on the hook for teaching nonsense to children, but things get much worse from there.

Cornerstone, which will be receiving over $419,000 in public funds this year, says they will not admit students who are LGBTQ, who express support for LGBTQ equality, or who live with parents or other guardians who identify as gay or transgender.

And the state just released a slick ad for them!

The irony of the Bob Jones University connection is beyond rich

Bob Jones is a private religious university in Greenville, South Carolina known as the granddaddy of racist segregation academies. Bob Jones lost its tax-exempt status in the 1970s over discriminating against Black students and over expelling students who dated outside their race. University officials argued in federal court that they had a First Amendment right to discriminate against Black people based on their sincere religious beliefs.

The Supreme Court agreed in 1983 but ruled that the U.S. government had no obligation to help them discriminate. They could put their sincere beliefs into practice all they liked, but they’d have to pay full taxes while doing so.

For much of the latter half of the 20th century, Bob Jones championed segregation academies all over the U.S. South, providing textbooks, teaching plans, legal advice, assistance with staff planning, and even low-cost consulting services to start-up schools. Again, I should know. I attended one such segregation academy in Gadsden, Alabama when I was in middle school.

Bob Jones literature was everywhere, and even though our K-12 school had hundreds of students, not a single kid was Black. That was by design, and we all knew it. The people who ran the school taught us that God doesn’t want Black people living, working, or studying with White people.

Today, teachings like that shock the conscience of most Christians, but in the 70s and 80s, the view was far from shocking. Christian institutions like my school often encouraged or facilitated segregation.

Bob Jones finally stopped discriminating on the basic of race in the year 2000.

And here we go again!

Today, in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and many other states, voucher programs are soaring, diverting taxpayer funds to segregation academies designed to keep LGBTQ kids and family members out, to discipline kids if they come out.

In Arizona, every student in the state is eligible for up to $72,000 in vouchers per year, the bulk of the vouchers go to religious schools, and wealthy families are the primary beneficiaries.

Some “private” taxpayer-funded religious schools — as in the case of Fox Valley Lutheran in Wisconsin— are even trying to destroy the higher-education plans of LGBTQ kids who are about to graduate.

So what happened to those two girls?

In the days following the dean’s ultimatum, students at the school protested. Reportedly, dozens wore rainbow tie-dye shirts to express solidarity. Students planned and threatened walkouts. Then the girls’ parents were summoned to meet with the principal, the athletic director, the dean, and several other administrators.

The principal opened the meeting by praying with one of the girls. Reportedly, the other girl and her parents refused to pray with him. Then the principal announced that he had expelled them from all extracurricular activities, including sports, cheerleading, and National Honor Society.

Was he upping the bigotry ante? He might have just been saving face, because he did not repeat the dean’s threat to expel the girls, who graduated on schedule.

However, they missed their final sporting events, cheerleading, and school trips and parties. What was supposed to be an exciting few weeks before they launched their adult lives became a time of exclusion, stress, fear, and tears.

All because they fell in love with each other as teenagers do. All because an adult man felt he had the right to to order them to break up. All because in Wisconsin like all over the United States, religious schools get a free pass to discriminate against queer kids.

I don’t know about you, but as a taxpayer and a gay man, I don’t think I should have to pay for segregation academies. The U.S. Constitution might make them hard to shut down, but nothing says the public has to foot the bill.

That’s a new thing under the sun. That’s a neat trick even Bob Jones never managed.

(Actually, that’s not completely true. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in August of 2022 that the State of Maine must fund religious schools under limited circumstances, such as when no public schools are accessible. But the decision was narrow in scope and based on peculiar circumstances that don’t apply across most of the nation.)

What can we do to protect minority students from mistreatment? We can let our state lawmakers know we don’t want segregation academies funded on the public dime. We can vote to end tuition-voucher programs.

We can also remind our friends and neighbors that voucher programs are actually harming students from poor families by sucking money from public schools.

How can we REALLY help students from poor families get great educations? According to Dr. Kathryn J. Edin at Johns Hopkins, the answer is simple. We pay public-school teachers better wages. That’s remarkably effective, she observes in her book, and a much smarter policy than defunding public schools and giving the money to unaccountable religious schools.

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