SCOTUS takes up Oklahoma religious charter school funding case

The fate of the nation’s first state-funded religious charter school is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court on Friday agreed to review a successful constitutional challenge to an Oklahoma board’s contract with St. Isadore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School that was brought by the state’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond.

A June Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling determined “the expenditure of state funds for St. Isidore’s operations constitutes the use of state funds for the benefit and support of the Catholic church” in violation of the state constitution. The contract for the charter school, which was approved by  the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board in 2023, was subsequently rescinded.

A decision in St. Isadore’s favor could open the door to religious charter schools in Oklahoma and other states at a time public schools push for more funding and face uncertainty about the U.S. Department of Education under the Trump administration. 

“By taking public money and placing it in private hands, this case threatens not only public schools that are secular, open and accessible to all, but also religious liberty and freedom writ large,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement.

Drummond opposed the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court filed by St. Isadore, which is part of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa.

“I will continue to vigorously defend the religious liberty of all four million Oklahomans,” he said in an October statement. “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.”

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has called the attorney general’s challenge “a political stunt,” welcomed the high court’s review.

“I believe our nation’s highest court will agree that denying St. Isidore’s charter based solely on its religious affiliation is flat-out unconstitutional,” he said in a statement. “We’ve seen ugly religious intolerance from opponents of the education freedom movement, but I look forward to seeing our religious liberties protected both in Oklahoma and across the country.”

Oklahoma has seven existing accredited virtual charter schools, which are funded through the state’s education department based on student enrollment. They receive no local funding and do not have bonding capacity.