Religious private and charter schools in the U.S. have been fighting a series of legal battles in recent years to answer the question: Can religious schools accept taxpayer funding?
In Oklahoma, that question is again being put to the test because the Statewide Charter School Board contracted with St. Isidore of Seville, a Catholic school, to join the state’s virtual charter school program.
However, Gentner Drummond, the Attorney General for the State of Oklahoma, successfully filed a lawsuit to block the school from joining, saying it would “open the floodgates” to funding religious schools.
“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,” Drummond said. “My fellow Oklahomans can rest assured that I will always fight to protect their God-given rights and uphold the law.”
He won his case at the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and now the the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the issue.
Oral arguments are expected in the case in April.
As The Center Square previously reported, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in 2017 in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer that faith-based groups could not be denied state funding simply because of their religious stance.
The court also ruled ruled 6-3 in Carson v. Makin in June 2022 to overturn Maine’s ban on state tuition assistance to students attending religious schools.
The Becket Foundation for Religious Liberty filed a brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations in favor of the Catholic school, arguing that the Supreme Court has already made clear that religious schools cannot be denied government funding simply because they are religious.
“Since this Court’s decisions in Trinity Lutheran, Espinoza, and Carson, state and local officials have dodged applying what should be a simple standard,” the brief said. “Rather than invalidate patently unconstitutional provisions, states have found ways to give them new life.”
Lori Windham, the Becket lawyer who filed the brief, told The Center Square that religious schools around the country are facing this problem despite often performing better than their public school counterparts.
“We have Colorado attempting to exclude religious preschools,” she said. “We have Minnesota attempting to exclude religious colleges who provide classes for high school students. We have Maine, yet again, who lost at the Supreme Court and went back and changed its rules and said, ‘No, now we really can exclude the religious schools.
“Unfortunately, we have seen this recalcitrant attitude on the part of states across the country,” she said.
Watch the rest of the interview below:
