Supreme Court to decide whether states can allow religious public schools
Story by Laura Meckler, Justin Jouvenal, Washington Post, 1/25/25
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether the state of Oklahoma may fund a proposed Catholic charter school, a blockbuster case that could redraw the line between church and state by allowing government to establish and directly fund religious schools for the first time.
The closely watched case tests how far the Supreme Court is willing to go in what has been a steady expansion in the use of tax dollars to support parochial education and a push by the high court in recent terms to enlarge religion’s role in the public sphere.
The court has already allowed government funding of vouchers for religious private schools. Backers say allowing funding for religious charter schools, which parents also opt into, is the logical next step.
But charter schools are public schools, and last year the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the proposed religious charter school violated both the state and U.S. constitutions. The state court said that both state and federal law bar public money for the establishment of a religious institution.
In 2023, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 to approve St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, to be operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. School leaders said it would approach religion the same way private Catholic schools do, with teachings woven into every subject from math and science to history and literature. The school also planned to consider religion in hiring; the principal, for instance, must be Catholic.
agreed to take up a case that could blur the
Loaded: 18.48%Play
Current Time 0:05
/
Duration 2:09Quality SettingsCaptionsFullscreen
NBC News
Supreme Court to hear case on Oklahoma’s bid to launch religious charter schoolUnmute
0
Allowing the school to go ahead, the Oklahoma justices wrote, “would create a slippery slope” and lead to what the framers warned against — “the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention.”
The ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and other opponents echoed that sentiment in a joint statement Friday, saying a publicly funded religious charter would be a dangerous erosion of bedrock constitutional principles.
“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,” the statement said.
Backers of the school say a victory would give parents new choices and that opportunity to exercise religious freedom is more important than concerns over entanglement between religion and government.
“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” said Jim Campbell, chief counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the state virtual charter board that approved the school.
Likewise, Oklahoma’s state schools superintendent, Ryan Walters, who backs the school, cast the case as a direct challenge to the nonreligious public education system.
“The entire country has eyes on Oklahoma to support St. Isidore and end state-sponsored atheism,” he said in a statement.
Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated and must abide by many of the rules that govern traditional public schools. If the court allows states to directly fund religious charter schools, many existing private religious schools would be able to seek to convert to charter schools and benefit from full government funding, further eroding the line between government and religion.
Oklahoma law clearly states that charter schools may not be sectarian or affiliated with a religious institution, and the state constitution bars spending public money, directly or indirectly, for any religious purpose, including teaching. Voters rejected an effort in 2016 to change the state’s constitution, with 57 percent voting no to allowing such spending.
Nonetheless, the archdiocese filed an application for the new school, seeking to test the limits of today’s jurisprudence. The state’s Republican attorney general sued after the state’s virtual charter board approved the application, saying that if the school was approved, government would effectively be controlling a religious institution.
But in recent years, religious activists have succeeded in bringing cases that have helped tear down what had been a clear delineation between public funding and religious education. In three significant rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court found that religious institutions may not be excluded from taxpayer-funded programs that were available to others.
In a 2017 case, the high court ruled that a church-run preschool in Missouri was entitled to a state grant that funded playgrounds. In 2020, the court ruled that Montana could include religious schools in a program giving tax incentives for supporting private-school tuition scholarships. And in 2023, the court said that a Maine voucher program that supplied state funding for rural students to attend private high schools had to be open to religious schools.
Advocates of school choice are rooting for the Oklahoma religious charter school to be approved as a way to offer parents more options. While many states offer vouchers that can be used for religious schools, the vouchers do not always cover the full tuition; charter school costs are covered entirely with tax dollars.
The school’s approval was originally challenged by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, who argued the case before the state Supreme Court. His spokesman said Friday that his office “looks forward to presenting our arguments before the Supreme Court.”
The conservative supermajority has also pushed to expand the rights of the religious in major rulings in recent terms.
In 2023, the high court ruled the Constitution’s free speech provisions shield some businesses from being required to provide services to same-sex couples, after a web designer argued she should not have to do such work because of her religious beliefs.
The same term the justices strengthened protections for religious rights in the workplace, siding with a mail carrier who argued he should not be forced to deliver packages on the Sabbath.
In 2o22, a divided court ruled Washington state discriminated against a football coach who prayed at midfield following a high school football game.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the court’s decision to review the case. The order does not include an explanation for her recusal but Barrett taught for many years at Notre Dame Law School, which represents St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School through the law school’s religious liberty clinic.
The schedule for filing court papers suggests the case is likely to be heard in late April.