In a closely divided ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively halted the launch of what would have been the country’s first religious charter school, handing a setback to advocates seeking a broader role for faith-based institutions within the public education system.
The high court reached a 4-4 stalemate on the case involving St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Charter School, leaving intact a prior ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court. That ruling had determined that establishing a religious charter school would run afoul of constitutional protections that separate religion and government.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not join the deliberations. While no official explanation was given, her personal connection to a Notre Dame Law professor who had once advised the Catholic Church in Oklahoma—an entity central to the case—was widely noted.
The Court issued a brief, one-sentence statement revealing the deadlock, which followed three weeks after oral arguments were heard. The announcement did not disclose how each of the justices voted.
With no majority reached, the ruling does not create a binding precedent that lower courts must follow.
Alliance Defending Freedom, which defended the state charter school board’s decision to approve St. Isidore, expressed disappointment but remained optimistic about the possibility of future litigation on the issue.
“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” Jim Campbell, the group’s chief legal counsel, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma’s Catholic Church leadership vowed to keep pursuing ways to provide faith-based virtual education to state residents.
Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, hailed the outcome as a crucial moment for upholding constitutional boundaries.
“A publicly funded religious charter school would have obliterated the wall of separation between state and church,” Gaylor said in a statement. “We’re relieved that, at least for now, the First Amendment still means what it says.”
During the hearing, the Court appeared to wrestle with the tension between two aspects of the First Amendment—its restrictions against government-endorsed religion and its protections of religious liberty.
While several conservative justices seemed initially inclined to back the Catholic Church’s effort to use public money for religious education, one ultimately sided with the three liberal justices, tipping the balance.
Chief Justice John Roberts seemed to signal caution, suggesting he viewed religious charter schools as more complicated than previous cases where the Court had expanded religious access to public resources.
The proposal by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa sought to establish a K-12 school that would include religious teachings as part of its curriculum.
The state charter school board had approved the application in a narrow 3-2 vote, but that decision triggered a lawsuit by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. He argued the arrangement was unconstitutional, since charter schools receive public funding and are required to operate as secular institutions.
“Oklahoma’s charter schools bear all of the hallmarks of a public school identified by this Court and more,” Drummond, a Republican, wrote in a brief to the justices as he urged them not to intervene.
Drummond also warned that redefining charter schools as private could cause legal chaos across the nation, as 46 states and the federal government all classify them as public institutions.
The dioceses and the nonprofit managing the school countered that charter schools are not truly public in the governmental sense, but rather privately managed entities that happen to be publicly funded. They argued that excluding religious organizations from operating such schools amounted to unconstitutional religious discrimination.
They also noted that no student would be compelled to attend the school, and therefore, there would be no government coercion of religious participation.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department had sided with the Church, arguing during the case that Oklahoma could not bar religious charter schools. Trump’s solicitor general was given time to speak during oral arguments.
The dispute also revealed a political divide within Oklahoma itself. While the state’s governor backed the Catholic school plan, Attorney General Drummond strongly opposed it.
Drummond warned the arrangement would “open the floodgates and force taxpayers to fund all manner of religious indoctrination, including radical Islam or even the Church of Satan.” In contrast, Governor Kevin Stitt accused Drummond of exhibiting “open hostility against religion.”
National charter school advocates also raised concerns that the case could destabilize public charter education across the country. They feared that if religious charter schools were deemed private, it could jeopardize state funding for charter schools in areas where public dollars cannot go to private institutions.
“With this legal clarity, we can move forward with renewed focus on expanding access to high-quality public charter schools for every family nationwide,” Starlee Coleman, president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, said in a statement after the ruling.
The St. Isidore case is one of several major religion-related cases the Supreme Court has agreed to review this year.
{Matzav.com}