The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of using taxpayer dollars to fund a religious K-12 charter school in Oklahoma.
The justices announced Jan. 24 they will review a June 2024 Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling determining the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board violated the Establishment Clauses of the state and U.S. constitutions by granting charter status to an online Catholic school. The board was ordered to void its contract with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would have been the first publicly funded religious charter school in the nation.
James Winchester
“Under Oklahoma law, a charter school is a public school. As such, a charter school must be nonsectarian,” Oklahoma Justice James Winchester wrote for the majority. “This state’s establishment of a religious charter school violates Oklahoma statutes, the Oklahoma Constitution, and the Establishment Clause.”
In her dissent, Justice Dana Kuehn said the faith-based school would not qualify as a “state actor” by being granted charter status and Oklahoma would not be establishing or favoring one religion over others in the process. “To the contrary: Excluding private entities from contracting for functions, based solely on religious affiliation, would violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
Dana Kuehn
Adding the charter school case to its current term could signal a continuing rightward shift in how the U.S. Supreme Court rules on church-state separation issues. The court’s 6-3 conservative majority has steadily upended longstanding precedent by elevating free-exercise considerations over those barring government establishment of religion.
A classic example of that shift came in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a 2022 ruling that sided with the religious liberty claims of a high school football coach who held post-game prayer sessions with players at the 50-yard line. The court ruled the Free Exercise and Free Speech clauses of the U.S. Constitution protect individuals from government intervention — even though school officials deemed the coach’s behavior to be coercive.
The idea of a publicly financed church charter school was initially proposed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa in early 2023 and was approved by the state’s charter school board in June that year.
Despite backing by Gov. Kevin Stitt, state Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a fellow Republican, opposed the plan as unconstitutional and immediately asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to declare the board’s vote unlawful. The board also was sued in federal court in 2023 by a group of parents and faith leaders along with the Oklahoma Parent Legislative Advocacy Coalition, or OKPLAC.
But supporters of the proposal answered with legal action of their own in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. After Oklahoma’s justices ruled against them, plaintiffs in both cases petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, which it agreed to do by consolidating the two lawsuits when oral arguments are heard at the end of the current term in April, SCOTUSblog reported.
Jim Campbell
“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” said Jim Campbell, chief legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. “There’s great irony in state officials who claim to be in favor of religious liberty discriminating against St. Isidore because of its Catholic beliefs. The U.S. Constitution protects St. Isidore’s freedom to operate according to its faith and supports the board’s decision to approve such learning options for Oklahoma families.”
But the law makes clear charter schools must be secular, public and open to students of any religious affiliation or none, according to attorneys in OKPLAC Inc. v. Statewide Virtual Charter School Board. The federal lawsuit was filed by the nonpartisan education group and nine Oklahomans including Mitch Randall, CEO of Good Faith Media, and Bruce Prescott, former executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists.
“The Oklahoma Supreme Court correctly found that the state’s approval of a religious public charter school was unlawful and unconstitutional. We urge the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm that ruling and safeguard public education, church-state separation, and religious freedom for all,” attorneys with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, Education Law Center and Freedom from Religion Foundation said.
The state must not provide funds to a faith-based charter school that will be allowed to decline students based on religious affiliation and LGBTQ status, the lawyers added. “Oklahoma taxpayers, including our plaintiffs, should not be forced to fund a religious public school that plans to discriminate against students and staff and indoctrinate students into one religion. Converting public schools into Sunday schools would be a dangerous sea change for our democracy.”
Kevin Stitt (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
SCOTUSblog reported Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the decision to review the Oklahoma case and provided no explanation for her recusal.
Gov. Stitt said he welcomed news the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the St. Isidore case.
“This stands to be one of the most significant religious and education freedom decisions in our lifetime,” he said. “I believe our nation’s highest court will agree that denying St. Isidore’s charter based solely on its religious affiliation is flat-out unconstitutional.”
But the state urged the high court to deny the review because the school plans to use public funds to “serve the evangelizing mission of the church,” SCOTUSblog reported. “And it contended that the justices should not intervene because the state Supreme Court’s ruling rested separately on its conclusion that the school’s contract with the charter school board violated the Oklahoma Constitution — which is the kind of ‘adequate and independent’ state ground precluding Supreme Court review.”
A decision in the case is not expected until late June or July.
Related articles:
Oklahoma Supreme Court says Catholic charter school unconstitutional
Opponents file suit to stop unprecedented Catholic charter school in Oklahoma
Oklahoma’s OK for nation’s first religious charter school to be challenged in court