Oregon Religious Schools Face a Higher Bar to Reopen
In October of 2020, Hermiston Christian School of Oregon filed a lawsuit in federal court against the State’s Governor Katherine Brown citing her uneven treatment of public and private schools with regard to the state’s reopening of K-12 education. Most of the state of Oregon did not start the 2020-2021 school year with in person education. However, the governor made exceptions for small public schools that had 75 or fewer students. Despite meeting the state’s health and safety protocols, Governor Brown refused to extend such exemptions to private and private religious schools of equal size. The Governor threatened to punish schools that reopened against these orders with 30 days jail time and $1,250 in fines. A spokesperson for the governor openly noted that Brown favored public schools because she feared an exodus to private education. In their suit, Hermiston Christian School argued that the governor’s preference for public ed...