First State Religious Charter School Is Ready to Go to the Supreme Court
Are publicly funded religious schools the next debate in education?
Advocacy groups are threatening litigation after an Oklahoma school board approved the initial application for the nation’s first public religious charter school.
On Monday, the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board announced that it approved St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School’s request by a 3–2 vote. The school, which plans to accept students for the 2024–25 school year, will be overseen by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.
The approval opens a national debate about the relationship between church and state as well as the role of free speech in government-funded organizations, a debate that will likely go to the Supreme Court.
“We recognize the legal significance of this, given that it will be the first religious charter school in the nation.… If that means we take it to the Supreme Court, we’re prepared to do that,” Brett Farley, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, told The American Spectator. (READ MORE: Progressives Just Admitted They Were Wrong on Phonics)
A charter school is a publicly funded school that “operates as a school of choice” and is “exempt from significant state and local regulations” that govern the “operation and management” of public schools, according to the National Charter School Resource Center.
Rachel Laser, head of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, announced that her organization is preparing to fight the school board’s decision in court.
“It’s hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families,” she said in an official statement. “In a country built on the principle of separation of church and state, public schools must never be allowed to become Sunday schools.”
Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s attorney general, expressed his disapproval on Twitter, indicating that he believes state funding for religious schools is unconstitutional.
“It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars,” Drummond said. “In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the State to potential legal action that could be costly.”
It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the State to potential legal action that could be costly. https://t.co/Hm6bhlqDW8
— Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (@Okla_OAG) June 5, 2023
The Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, which “serves as the official voice of the Catholic Church in Oklahoma on matters of public policy,” intended St. Isidore of Seville School to reach more rural areas of Oklahoma, providing a Catholic education to students who would otherwise be unable to pursue that opportunity. Farley said officials began discussing the possibility of applying for charter school status two years ago.
“These are ideas that had been considered before; it wasn’t a new idea,” he said. “But we thought, well, maybe it’s time to pull the trigger on that.”
The Catholic Conference of Oklahoma began discussing its legal options with the Religious Liberty Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Law School.
“Nicole Garnett, who is a law professor there, at Notre Dame … has been studying, and writing, and debating this issue for the better part of 30 years,” Farley said. “We’ve been talking very intently with her and her colleagues there, who have been providing us with legal counsel and strategic advice.”
Garnett, who is an advocate for government funding of religious schools, says that the issue is less about school choice and more about the First Amendment.
“This is fundamentally a religious-liberty issue,” Garnett said in an interview with Education Week. “If charter schools are, for federal constitutional purposes, private schools—in technical terms, if they are not “state actors”—then states can’t prohibit them from being religious.”
The Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board initially denied St. Isidore’s application for charter school status and submitted some recommendations for improvements to the school’s charter.
“That denial was pretty typical,” said Farley. “Most charter schools we see in Oklahoma that are ultimately approved go through an initial denial.”
At the time, the board emphasized that the ruling had nothing to do with whether a religious charter school was constitutional.
According to Farley, the goal is to address the need for Catholic education in rural areas and to make that solution widely available.
“We really do want to start the school. So, we’re not doing this because it’s just some sort of test case that we want to take up to the Supreme Court,” he said.
Gov. J. Kevin Stitt, who has supported the school choice initiative and the concept of religious charter schools, issued a public statement congratulating the school board on its courage. (READ MORE: School Board Wants to Kick Pride Flags Out of Wisconsin Schools)
“This is a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state,” Stitt said. “Today, with the nation watching, our state showed that we will not stand for religious discrimination.”
Farley believes that the debate over religious charter schools is a small piece of the more extensive discussion over school choice, which he says is widely popular in Oklahoma.
In May, Stitt passed a bill to provide tax refunds for parents who send their children to private or charter schools.
“As a faithful Christian, he recognizes that … we are in a position right now, not just in our country, but in Western culture, where our culture is crumbling around us,” Farley said. “We have to take aggressive strides to reinject virtue into our education because we’re losing our kids.”
Aubrey Gulick is a recent graduate from Hillsdale College and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute Fellow at The American Spectator. When she isn’t writing, Aubrey enjoys long runs, solving rock climbs, and rattling windows with the 32-foot pipes on the organ. Follow her on Twitter @AubGulick.
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