By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Wednesday to hear arguments in a bid led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation’s first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major test of religious rights and the separation of church and state in American education.
Organizers of the proposed school and a state school board that backs it have appealed a lower court’s ruling that blocked the establishment of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. That court found that the proposed religious charter school would violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment limits on government involvement in religion.
Charter schools in Oklahoma are considered public schools under state law and draw funding from the state government.
The proposed charter school has divided officials in Republican-governed Oklahoma. It is being challenged by the state’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond but Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has backed it, as has Republican President Donald Trump’s administration.
St. Isidore, planned as a joint effort by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa, would offer virtual learning from kindergarten through high school. Its plan to integrate religion into its curriculum would make it the first religious charter school in the United States. The proposed school has never been operational amid legal challenges to its establishment.
Opponents have said religious charter schools would force taxpayers to support religious indoctrination. It could also undermine nondiscrimination principles, they argued, since religious charter schools might seek to bar employees who do not adhere to doctrinal teachings.
Organizers estimated in 2023 that St. Isidore would cost Oklahoma taxpayers up to $25.7 million over its first five years in operation.
The Oklahoma charter school board in June 2023 approved the plan to create St. Isidore in a 3-2 vote.
Drummond sued in October 2023 to block St. Isidore in a legal action filed at the Oklahoma Supreme Court, saying he was duty bound to “prevent the type of state-funded religion that Oklahoma’s constitutional framers and the founders of our country sought to prevent.”
‘SURROGATE OF THE STATE’
Oklahoma’s top court in a 6-2 ruling last year blocked the school. It classified St. Isidore as a “governmental entity” that would act as “a surrogate of the state in providing free public education as any other state-sponsored charter school.”
That court decided that the proposal ran afoul of the First Amendment’s “establishment clause,” which restricts government officials from endorsing any particular religion, or promoting religion over nonreligion. The First Amendment generally constrains the government but not private entities.
St. Isidore, the court wrote, would “require students to spend time in religious instruction and activities, as well as permit state spending in direct support of the religious curriculum and activities within St. Isidore – all in violation of the establishment clause.”
School board officials and St. Isidore argued in Supreme Court papers that the Oklahoma court erred by deeming St. Isidore an arm of the government rather than a private organization. They argued that the government had not delegated a state duty to St. Isidore merely by contracting with it, and that the school would function largely independently of the government.
They also argued that Oklahoma’s refusal to establish St. Isidore as a charter school solely because it is religious is discrimination under First Amendment language that protects the free exercise of religion.
Drummond told the Supreme Court that Oklahoma’s top court correctly classified St. Isidore as a government entity since charter schools qualify as public schools, noting that both are publicly funded and subject to state oversight. Moreover, Drummond argued, the Supreme Court has previously said that states may require secular education in their public schools.
The Supreme Court’s decision is expected by the end of June.
The court has recognized broader religious rights in a series of rulings in recent years.
It ruled in a Missouri case in 2017 that churches and other religious entities cannot be flatly denied public money based on their religious status – even in states whose constitutions explicitly ban such funding.
In 2020, it endorsed Montana tax credits that helped pay for students to attend religious schools. In 2022, it backed two Christian families in their challenge to Maine’s tuition-assistance program that had excluded private religious schools.
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the Oklahoma case, though did not explain why. Barrett is a former professor at Notre Dame Law School, which represents the school’s organizers.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
