Thomas Olp: Pa. families score touchdown for religious freedom

For many kids, sports are more than just a game. They offer physical and mental health benefits – better sleep, lower illness risk, reduced stress, and improved academic performance. In an age where children are glued to smartphones and screens at alarmingly young ages, athletics are more vital than ever.

A 2025 study in the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities found that smartphone use, especially before age 13, causes serious mental health challenges and physical harm, like disrupted sleep. Sports provide a critical counterbalance, fostering physical health and social interaction. All my six children ran cross country in high school and benefitted greatly from the physical conditioning, socialization, and discipline the sport provided.

Pennsylvania’s governing body for high school athletics, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA), acknowledges this on its website: “Participation in (sports) … builds character traits and interpersonal skills difficult to duplicate in other settings.”

So, it was puzzling to learn that the PIAA has had a long-standing policy barring parochial school students from joining public school sports teams when their smaller schools lacked athletic programs – a policy that unfairly penalized families for choosing faith-based education. Meanwhile, charter school and homeschool students were allowed to join teams at their home school district.

Simply put, families who chose a faith-based education for their kids were being unfairly excluded. This injustice sparked a federal lawsuit filed by Thomas More Society, where I serve as an attorney, on behalf of parochial school families who were harmed by the policy.

Now, as the new school year starts up, we are already seeing change as a result. Prompted by our lawsuit, the PIAA has agreed to end its discriminatory practice and entered an interim consent order this week signed off on by a federal judge. The PIAA will now revise its bylaws in the coming weeks to permanently ensure equal access for parochial school students, just like their homeschool and charter school peers.

As a result, parochial school families are already seeing their children take the field. This triumph marks a turning point for fairness in Pennsylvania athletics. Parochial school athletes without teams will no longer be kept off the roster because of their family’s choice to prioritize religious education.

This practice was not only unfair, but a subtle form of religious discrimination that unconstitutionally penalized families for living out their faith through their educational choices.

The First Amendment guarantees that religious families cannot be denied public benefits, like taxpayer-funded sports programs, because of faith-based decisions. The Fourteenth Amendment demands equal treatment for all students, regardless of their school choice.

As U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann stated in our prior lawsuit, where we had prevailed on the same issue, against the State College Area School District: “The Free Exercise Clause is clear: regardless of what reasons some parents may have for sending their children to a non-public school, a religious reason has the same value as a secular reason.”

Building on that win, this statewide victory ensures parochial school students across Pennsylvania can now access the same opportunities as their peers. Families, who were plaintiffs in our case against the PIAA, choose religious education to ensure their children receive an education where their faith is nurtured and supported, often at great sacrifice.

Justice Samuel Alito, recently writing for the Supreme Court’s majority in Mahmoud v. Taylor, captured the importance of that choice: “(F)or many people of faith across the country, there are few religious acts more important than the religious education of their children.”

For families in underserved or rural communities, where smaller parochial schools often lack resources to field sports teams, this news is a game-changer. It affirms that no child should miss out on the life-shaping benefits of athletics due to their family’s religious convictions.

As the new school year begins, parochial school students are already stepping onto the field, track, and court alongside their public-school peers. With this victory, a clear message is being sent: Pennsylvania families have a right to live out their faith without sacrificing opportunity.

Thomas Olp is an executive vice president at Thomas More Society, a national nonprofit public interest law firm defending life, family and freedom.