The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear a challenge to Mississippi's lifetime ban on voting by people convicted of a wide range of felonies, a policy adopted in 1890 during the Jim Crow era that stands as one of the toughest such restrictions in the nation.

The Supreme Court has left in place Mississippi’s Jim Crow-era practice of removing voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies, including nonviolent crimes such as forgery and timber theft.

The justices recently agreed to review appeals that cite First Amendment religious rights. The high court’s decisions could affect operations of the nation’s schools.

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether states may reject religious charter schools from receiving public funding, agreeing to hear arguments in an appeal out of Oklahoma involving the first such school in the nation.

Several organizations have voiced concerns about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear a case regarding an Oklahoman religious public charter school.The Fre