Christian trainee teachers barred from Chicago school placements

Trainee teachers at Moody Bible Institute have been blocked from Chicago’s public schools’ student teaching programme.

The city’s Board of Education has refused to accept Moody students unless the Institute abandons its policy of only hiring employees who subscribe to its biblical beliefs. The Bible college has launched a legal challenge against the Board for religious discrimination, supported by religious liberty group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Moody’s Elementary Education degree programme was approved in January 2024 and the course requires its trainee teachers to do school placements.

Disqualifying teachers

ADF CEO Kristen Waggoner reasoned: “Why would the Chicago Board of Education exclude well-qualified student teachers from a local private college, even as they struggle to staff hundreds of open teaching positions?

“The answer: they object to Moody Bible Institute’s long-standing practice of hiring Christians who live by biblical standards. But if Moody were to hire non-believers, it would quickly cease to be a Christian college.”

Waggoner stated: “Chicago is asking Moody to give up its faith in order to qualify for the student teaching program.”

She added: “Disqualifying good teachers because they go to Christian school helps no one—least of all the Chicago families whose children stand to benefit.”

Increasing intolerance

Last year, religious freedom experts highlighted “increasing intolerance” towards people of faith in Europe and North America.

Speaking at the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin, representatives from across the world urged Western democracies to protect the freedom of those who hold religious beliefs on marriage, family, and sexual ethics.

The Religious Freedom Institute warned that “religious believers in the West are increasingly being targeted, marginalised, and sometimes even prosecuted for peacefully expressing their traditional religious convictions”.