Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, a private Christian college, challenging the Chicago Board of Education for religious discrimination over the school’s hiring practices. Chicago Public Schools has prevented Moody Bible Institute from participating in its student teaching program unless it gives up its right to hire like-minded individuals who share and live out its religious beliefs and mission to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Moody Bible Institute’s Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education degree program prepares future elementary school teachers. Prospective teachers are required to spend a minimum amount of time in classroom observation, practicum, and student teaching hours. Chicago Public School officials, however, refuse to allow Moody students to participate in its student teaching program unless Moody abandons its religiously based hiring practices and hire employees who disagree with Moody’s core mission and biblical values.
“Chicago desperately needs more teachers to fill hundreds of vacancies, but public school administrators are putting personal agendas ahead of the needs of families,” said ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus. “Moody holds its faculty and students to high standards of excellence and is more than qualified to participate in Chicago’s student-teaching program. By excluding Moody for its religious beliefs, Chicago Public Schools is illegally injecting itself into a religious non-profit’s hiring practices, which the Constitution and state laws expressly forbid.”
Founded in 1886 by evangelist and pastor Dwight L. Moody, Moody Bible Institute offers a variety of biblically-based, undergraduate- and graduate-level degrees to more than 2,300 students across its four schools. Moody hires faculty and staff who are ambassadors to its mission of spreading the gospel and preparing students through biblical, practical, and relevant training. All employees must share and live out its biblical beliefs and values, including those on marriage and human sexuality.
In January 2024, the Illinois State Board of Education approved Moody Bible Institute’s Elementary Education degree program. But Chicago Public Schools refused to allow Moody’s participation in the student-teaching program, citing its policy that colleges and universities participating in the student-teaching program cannot “discriminate against any individual with respect to compensation, or other terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of . . . religion, . . . gender identity/expression, [or] sexual orientation.” When Moody sought a potential amendment to the policy recognizing its rights as a religious institution, Chicago Public Schools continued to refuse to accommodate Moody’s religious rights.
