SCOTUS could be next step after Oklahoma's highest court rules on state-funded religious schools

Religious law

SCOTUS could be next step after Oklahoma’s highest court rules on state-funded religious schools

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 25, 2024, 3:29 p.m. CDT

SCOTUS could be next step after Oklahoma’s highest court rules on state-funded religious schools

A contract providing state funding for an online Catholic charter school violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the Oklahoma Constitution and a state law governing charter schools, ruled Tuesday the Oklahoma Supreme Court. (Image from Shutterstock)

Seville’s St. Isidore Catholic Virtual School would have been the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school, the New York Times, the Associated Press and Reuters report.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa hoped to create the school to participate “in the evangelizing mission of the Church,” the state Supreme Court said in the June 25 decision by Justice James R. Winchester.

“St. Isidore is a public charter school,” the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled. The Oklahoma Charter Schools Act “does not authorize a charter school to be sectarian in its programs, admissions policies, its employment practices and operations The law’s mandate is consistent with the Oklahoma Constitution and the Establishment Clause, both of which prohibit the state from using public funds for the creation of. a religious institution.

A dissenter, Justice Dana Kuehn, said the school’s exclusion from the charter school program violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

The funding issue had divided Republicans in Oklahoma state government, according to the New York Times. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and Ryan Walters, the superintendent of public instruction, had supported state funding for St. Isidore. But Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond opposed it before the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa said in a statement that they would “consider all legal options” following the ruling, the Associated Press reports.

The case could go to the United States Supreme Court, according to the New York Times. St. Isidore supporters cite recent Supreme Court rulings on public aid to religious schools, including a 2022 ruling that Maine could not exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance program. State-funded schooling.

“We have repeatedly held that a state violates the Free Exercise Clause when it excludes religious observers from otherwise available public benefits,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in that decision.