Chicago Public Schools spent years lecturing Illinois about inclusion and diversity.
Now a Bible college is suing them for doing something that would make your jaw drop.
What Chicago demanded they give up to teach in its classrooms is something no American should ever be forced to surrender.
Moody Bible Institute Students Blocked From Chicago Classrooms Over Christian Hiring Practices
Moody Bible Institute – a private Christian college founded in 1886 and fully approved by the Illinois State Board of Education – sued the Chicago Board of Education in November after CPS refused to let its elementary education students complete their required classroom hours.
The reason had nothing to do with academic qualifications.
CPS demanded Moody sign agreements requiring the college to abandon its practice of hiring employees who share its Christian faith and live by its code of conduct.
Moody refused.
Those agreements would have forced the college to hire people who openly reject everything Moody stands for – including its beliefs on marriage and sexuality.
CPS had even been asked to modify the language to recognize Moody's rights as a religious institution.
Here's what makes this inexcusable: the Chicago Board of Education admitted in writing that "certain exemptions may exist for religious institutions in their own practices" – then refused to grant one anyway.
They knew they were wrong and did it anyway.
The lawsuit also uncovered something even more damning: CPS was selectively enforcing its own policy.
Other religious colleges with virtually identical faith-based hiring practices were quietly approved for the same program.
Chicago wasn't applying a neutral policy.
They were targeting Moody specifically.
Chicago's Anti-Christian Discrimination Has a Losing Track Record in Court
This wasn't a novel legal theory from a desperate school district.
It was the same play left-wing school officials have been running on Christian schools for years – and it keeps losing in court.
In 2023, the Phoenix-area Washington Elementary School District pulled the exact same move on Arizona Christian University, ending an 11-year student-teaching partnership because ACU held Christian beliefs on gender and sexuality.
Alliance Defending Freedom sued.
They won.
The Supreme Court settled the underlying law in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru – a 7-2 ruling that the First Amendment bars government from interfering with religious institutions' employment decisions.
ADF has a 77% win rate and has played a role in 49 Supreme Court victories.
Chicago's lawyers knew the law when they drafted those agreements.
Chicago Public Schools Had Hundreds of Teacher Vacancies and Still Said No to Bible College Students
Chicago Public Schools is simultaneously fighting a teacher shortage – hundreds of positions sit vacant every year, with CPS counting on roughly $200 million in savings from unfilled classrooms.
The Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents found that 87% of school leaders across the state identified teacher shortages as a problem.
CPS spent months blocking qualified, state-approved student teachers from stepping foot in classrooms – not because they lacked credentials, not because they posed any academic risk, but because their college requires them to believe what Christians have believed for 2,000 years.
Rep. Tim Walberg, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, fired off a letter to CPS in December calling the allegations "deeply troubling" and warning that the district was demanding Moody "abandon its Biblically-based doctrinal positions" on sexuality.
The settlement announced Thursday resolves the case completely.
CPS modified its Student Teacher Internship Agreement to recognize Moody's faith-based hiring practices.
Moody is now listed as an approved university partner on CPS's own website.
"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," ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus said.
What the Moody Bible Institute Settlement Means for Religious Freedom in Public Schools
The Chicago Board of Education put its gender ideology ahead of 325,000 students who needed qualified teachers in their classrooms.
They admitted they knew religious exemptions existed.
They chose to persecute Moody anyway.
And they lost – fast, completely, and on the record.
Every school board in America tempted to pull this same move now has a four-month federal lawsuit and a humiliating public settlement as its warning.
The First Amendment doesn't have a carve-out for cities that find Christianity inconvenient.
Chicago found that out the hard way.
Sources:
- Kristine Parks, "Chicago Public Schools will now allow Bible college students into its teaching program, after lawsuit," Fox News, March 13, 2026.
- ADF Senior Counsel Jeremiah Galus, Press Release, Alliance Defending Freedom, March 12, 2026.
- Jon Brown, "Moody Bible Institute secures settlement allowing student teachers in Chicago schools," The Christian Post, March 13, 2026.
- Rep. Tim Walberg letter to CPS Interim Superintendent Macquline King, December 2025, via The College Fix.
- The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago, Complaint, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, November 4, 2025.
