Oklahoma Supreme Court blocks taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school

Taxpayers "will not be compelled to fund radical religious schools that violate their faith," said the state's attorney general. (Yes, really.)

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In a devastating ruling for conservatives who want public money to fund private (Christian) education, the Oklahoma Supreme Court today ruled 7-1 to block the state from launching the nation’s first religious charter school. While the decision will be appealed, for now, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School will not be opening this fall—at least not with the benefit of any taxpayer dollars.

Oklahoma’s Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who filed the lawsuit—yes, really—celebrated the decision:

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (screenshot via YouTube)

This decision is a tremendous victory for religious liberty. The framers of the U.S. Constitution and those who drafted Oklahoma’s Constitution clearly understood how best to protect religious freedom: by preventing the State from sponsoring any religion at all. Now Oklahomans can be assured that our tax dollars will not fund the teachings of Sharia Law or even Satanism. While I understand that the Governor and other politicians are disappointed with this outcome, I hope that the people of Oklahoma can rejoice that they will not be compelled to fund radical religious schools that violate their faith.

While the references to “Sharia Law” and “Satanism” reek of unnecessary bigotry, Drummond has been opposed to this publicly funded Christian school since he came into office, so his lawsuit was certainly welcome.

The decision is also a slap in the face to Gov. Kevin Stitt, who called the lawsuit a “political stunt” and said Drummond “seems to lack any firm grasp on the constitutional principle of religious freedom.” It’ll also be disappointing for State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, who echoed those remarks in his own statement months ago, saying for some bizarre reason, “atheism should not be the state-sponsored religion.” (Spoiler: It is not.) He also called Drummond’s lawsuit “misguided.”

The justices didn’t think it was misguided. In fact, they were very blunt about their reasoning:

We hold that the St. Isidore Contract violates the Oklahoma Constitution, the [Oklahoma Charter Schools] Act, and the federal Establishment Clause. St. Isidore is a public charter school. The Act does not allow a charter school to be sectarian in its programs… Under both state and federal law, the State is not authorized to establish or fund St. Isidore.

…

Enforcing the St. Isidore Contract would create a slippery slope and what the framers’ warned against—the destruction of Oklahomans’ freedom to practice religion without fear of governmental intervention.

In short, tax dollars can’t fund sectarian education. It’s not that complicated.

Had they ruled the other way, it would have been a disaster, opening the floodgates well beyond Oklahoma’s borders. And if taxpayers have to pay for private religious schools, that means even less money available for public education.

To make sense of what’s happening here, it helps to know how this religious school got a green light in the first place. I wrote a much lengthier explanation of that here. What’s relevant to know right now is that the Oklahoma's Statewide Virtual Charter School Board was warned this school would be a problem for all the reasons the justices cited… but they approved it anyway.

Besides the unconstitutionality of its existence, this school was a problem because of the way it would have operated. Unlike public schools, this Catholic school would not require teachers to be certified, would not have to accept openly LGBTQ teachers, and would explicitly promote Catholic doctrine during school hours. There was also the possibility that students who became pregnant could get expelled—along with trans students just for existing—and that sex education would be omitted from the curriculum. In addition, this kind of school wouldn’t have the resources to take on special needs students. (“That is something we will need to develop,” said Lara Schuler, senior director of Catholic education at the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, during a presentation in February of 2023.)

All the while, taxpayers would be footing the bill.

How did conservatives defend any of that? The proposed K-12 school would theoretically help Catholics in rural parts of Oklahoma obtain a faith-based education. The Supreme Court has already said that if taxpayer dollars are available for general programs, an institution can’t be excluded from consideration just because it’s religious. The Catholic Church used that argument to justify the creation of this charter school.

By doing so, however, they fully ignored the will of Oklahoma’s voters who rejected a 2016 ballot measure that would have repealed the part of the State Constitution, the “no aid” clause, that bans public money being used for religious purposes. (They rejected that measure on the same night Donald Trump was elected.)

Drummond’s opposition to the school was partly surprising because his predecessor fully supported the idea. For a high-ranking Republican in a red state, Drummond’s decision to fight on the side of church/state separation was both surprising and arguably courageous.

Incidentally, a coalition of church/state separation groups including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU, the Education Law Center, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, filed their own separate lawsuit to block the funding to this school, but that case was filed in a district court and hadn’t been resolved. (Today’s ruling likely makes their lawsuit moot.)

The coalition still applauded today’s ruling:

“The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision safeguards public education and upholds the separation of religion and government. Charter schools are public schools that must be secular and serve all students. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which plans to discriminate against students, families, and staff and indoctrinate students into one religion, cannot operate as a public charter school. We will continue our efforts to protect public education and religious freedom, including the separation of church and state.” 

So what’s next? Even with today’s loss, the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Though when the facts of the case are this skewed in favor of the plaintiffs and so far removed from charter school cases the Court has already seen, it might be a tough sell for even some of those conservative justices. (But no one should put it past them.)

Archbishop Paul Coakley said in a statement that the ruling was “very disappointing.” Which is nice to hear from the Church, for once, given that you usually only hear that comment from its victims.

The existence of one faith-based, taxpayer-funded charter school threatened public education funding all across the country. We should be grateful that, at least this time around, this one was stopped before the problem spread elsewhere.

Without court intervention, the school would have been scheduled to open this fall. Over the first five years, it was expected to cost taxpayers more than $26 million.

(Large portions of this article were published earlier)

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