MADISON, Wis. – Gov. Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) believe the state’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI) was legally wrong to deny bus transportation to students from a small Catholic school.

So Walker and the DOJ are refusing to provide legal representation for the DPI in a federal lawsuit that was filed by the Catholic school and the parents of its students.

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St. Augustine School in Hartford, Wisconsin asked the Fife Lake school district to provide bus transportation to and from school for its students, in accordance with a state law that says public schools must provide transportation to private school students.

Fife Lake officials denied the request, citing a provision of the law that says they don’t have to provide transportation for students of more than one religious school from the same denomination who live in the same “attendance area,” according to Madison.com.

The school district already provides transportation for students from one Catholic school, which is affiliated with the Milwaukee Roman Catholic Archdiocese. St. Augustine has no such affiliation.

St. Augustine officials appealed the decision to DPI, which is led by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Evers, a staunch public school supporter who has been viewed as being hostile toward religious schools.

Evers and DPI sided with the school district, resulting in the lawsuit.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which is representing the parents in the lawsuit, cite case law in demanding transportation for the students.

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“CJ Szafir, an attorney representing the parents, said based on a former Supreme Court decision, the law requires the DPI to only look at a school’s articles of incorporation to determine a school’s affiliation,” Madison.com reported. “Those articles describe the school as a private school governed independently of any denomination. He said it’s against the law for DPI to define ‘Catholic’ because the articles of incorporation do not describe the school that way.”

Evers and the DPI asked the Wisconsin Department of Justice to provide legal counsel in the lawsuit. The DOJ denied the request, then on Wednesday the Walker administration denied a request by DPI to hire outside legal representation.

Why?

“The DOJ believes that DPI does not have a legally defensible position in the case.” Department of Justice spokesman Johnny Koremenos was quoted as saying by Madison.com.

Evers, who holds a non-partisan office but is supported by Democrats, was clearly upset by the lack of support from Walker or the state attorney general (who leads the Department of Justice), who are both Republicans.

“I think this is the first time in my history that the attorney general decided not to support us in a case,” Evers was quoted as saying by Madison.com. “When the former attorney general (J.B. Van Hollen) was here, I know he took cases that politically didn’t work well for him, but he always took them, he always represented us. This kind of treatment is beyond the pale, frankly.”

But one former state attorney general said this sort of thing has happened before, when DOJ officials believe there is no solid case to defend.

“Former Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager, a Democrat, said DOJ choosing not to represent a state agency in a lawsuit ‘happens occasionally, at most, but only when the AG either believes the agency’s action or challenged statute to be unconstitutional – that no case can be made in defense – or when there is a legitimate conflict of interest, which is very rare.’”