US Supreme Court to hear landmark cases on public funding for religious schools News
Greater Oklahoma City Chamber and Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau (uploaded by Chamber employee Lillie-Beth Brinkman lbrinkman@okcchamber.com), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
US Supreme Court to hear landmark cases on public funding for religious schools

On Friday, the US Supreme Court announced that it would take up a groundbreaking case to determine whether Oklahoma may fund a proposed Catholic charter school. The decision could redefine the boundaries between church and state. If the court sides with Oklahoma, it would mark the first time the government can establish and directly fund religious schools.

The justices expedited the briefing schedule. Oral arguments will be heard during the court’s final April session, the last regularly scheduled session of the term. A ruling is expected by late June or early July. Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the decision to grant review.

In Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, the Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with the state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, ruling that the charter school board had violated state law, the Oklahoma Constitution, and the US Constitution by approving St. Isidore, a Catholic online school, as a charter school. The court warned that permitting the school to proceed “would create a slippery slope” and undermine the very principles the framers sought to protect—specifically, “the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention.”

The school and the charter school board brought their case to the Supreme Court in October, urging the justices to intervene. The school argued that the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision “unconstitutionally punished the free exercise of religion by disqualifying the religious from government aid.”

The state pushed back, urging the justices to deny the request for review. It highlighted the school’s stated intent to “serve the evangelizing mission of the church” and argued that the Supreme Court should steer clear of the case. The state emphasized that the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision was based, in part, on its interpretation of Oklahoma’s state law.

Opponents, including the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, echoed this warning in a joint statement on Friday, calling the prospect of a publicly funded religious charter school a grave threat to foundational constitutional protections. “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.

Oklahoma’s state schools superintendent, Ryan Walters, a staunch supporter of the school, framed the case as a bold challenge to the traditional, nonreligious public education system saying, the “decision to hear the St. Isidore case is a historic moment for religious liberty and parental choice in education. This is about ending state-sponsored atheism and ensuring families have the freedom to choose faith-based education.”

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