Supreme Court to consider an effort to establish the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school

The Supreme Court will weigh an effort to establish the nation’s first religious charter school with implications for school choice and religious practices. 

The court agreed Friday to hear two cases on the matter, which will be argued together — Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. 

In 2023, the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted to approve an application by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa for a K-12 online school, the St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School.

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Oklahoma parents, faith leaders and an education group sought to block the school after the approval. 

In a 7-1 decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court found a taxpayer-funded religious charter school would violate the First Amendment’s provision on “establishment of religion” and the state constitution.

“Under Oklahoma law, a charter school is a public school,” Justice James Winchester wrote in the court’s majority opinion. “As such, a charter school must be nonsectarian.

“However, St. Isidore will evangelize the Catholic school curriculum while sponsored by the state.”

Alliance Defending Freedom Chief Counsel Jim Campbell told Fox News Digital the case “is fundamentally about religious discrimination and school choice.”

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“The Supreme Court has been clear in three cases over the last eight years that you can’t create a public program like that and then exclude religious organizations,” Campbell said. “So, we’re going to be arguing before the court that the state of Oklahoma should be allowed to open up the program to religious organizations.”

Campbell says the decision would give parents, families and the state “more educational options.” 

Oklahoma Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who originally challenged the school’s approval, has previously said the school’s establishment is unconstitutional. His spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement the attorney general “looks forward to presenting our arguments before the high court.”

“I will continue to vigorously defend the religious liberty of all 4 million Oklahomans,” Drummond said in a statement released in October. “This unconstitutional scheme to create the nation’s first state-sponsored religious charter school will open the floodgates and force taxpayers to fund all manner of religious indoctrination, including radical Islam or even the Church of Satan. My fellow Oklahomans can rest assured that I will always fight to protect their God-given rights and uphold the law.”

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The Oklahoma case is one of several religious institution cases that have been filed in the Supreme Court. 

In 2017, the high court ruled in favor of a Missouri church that sued the state after being denied taxpayer funds for a playground project as a result of a provision that prohibits state funding for religious entities. 

Likewise, in 2020, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on taxpayer funding for religious schools in a 5-4 decision that backed a Montana tax-credit scholarship program. Most recently, in 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that a Maine tuition assistance program violated the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause for excluding religious schools from eligibility.

Campbell said given the court’s previous considerations of cases involving religious educational institutions, he is “hopeful that the Supreme Court will recognize that the same principle applies here.”

“You can’t create a charter school program that allows private organizations to participate but tell the religious groups that they can’t be included,” Campbell said. “So, we’re hopeful that the Supreme Court will make it clear that people of faith deserve to be a part of the charter school program as well.”

Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case, although an explanation was not given. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in April. 

School choice has become a hot-button issue, particularly after the 2024 election cycle. President Donald Trump recently signed two executive orders on education, one to remove federal funding from K-12 schools that teach critical race theory and another to support school choice. 

Fox News Digital’s Ronn Blitzer and the Associated Press contributed to this report.