by Jennifer Palmer, Oklahoma Watch
April 30, 2025

Oklahoma was in the national spotlight Wednesday as the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case over the state’s desire to create the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school. 

The justices seemed split along predictable ideological lines, with Republican-appointed justices sympathetic to the school and Democratic-appointed ones skeptical. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recusal in the case, a single conservative justice siding with the three liberal justices would create a 4-4 decision. A tie would leave intact the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling rejecting the school. 

Chief Justice John Roberts seemed most likely to split with the conservative majority, with his questions indicating he has not yet chosen a side, legal experts said Wednesday. 

The court’s decision is expected in late June or early July. 

The school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, named after the patron saint of the Internet, would be operated by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. St. Isidore would be Catholic in every aspect, including instruction and operations. 

St. Isidore applied to become a charter school, a type of school that is publicly funded but privately run. Oklahoma’s charter school board approved its application in 2023, drawing a legal challenge from Attorney General Gentner Drummond. In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with Drummond in a ruling that blocked the school and ordered the state to rescind its contract. 

The board, in August, complied with a caveat: that the contract would automatically be reinstated if the U.S. Supreme Court reversed or vacated the state Supreme Court’s decision. 

In other recent cases, the court has sided with parents and religious institutions in disputes over programs to help parents pay for private school and a state grant program for playground funding. 

Chief Justice Roberts said those cases involved “fairly discrete state involvement,” but St. Isidore “strikes me as a much more comprehensive involvement.” Later, Roberts suggested another of the court’s decisions should compel a decision in favor of St. Isidore. 

“Roberts, more than anyone else, is either not decided or playing coy,” said Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina.

Much of Wednesday’s argument focused on whether charter schools are, in fact, private, as raised by the attorneys for St. Isidore and the charter school board. 

“For the justices, it’s central whether charters are public or private,” said Marc Blitz, a law professor at Oklahoma City University. 

Justice Samuel Alito probed that issue with a line of questioning for Gregory Garre, who argued for Drummond. Alito asked whether the purpose of charter schools is to offer an alternative to public schools, particularly through curriculum. Could a school have an LGBTQ+ focus, or teach history from a progressive viewpoint, such as through the 1619 Project, he asked. Could they teach history like it was taught in 1955, celebrating the founding fathers and not mentioning their shortcomings, he continued. 

No, Garre said.

“They’re controlled in the same way that public schools are,” he said. “And that’s the point, Justice Alito. Charter schools are like public schools, traditional public schools.”

Private schools, Garre continued, can open without any state approval, aren’t bound by curriculum requirements, charge tuition, restrict admission and aren’t subject to oversight or reporting requirements. 

Backers of St. Isidore said they’ve been denied the right to tap into public funding as a charter school based solely on their religion. 

Their attorneys argued that charter schools are actually private schools, and that denying access to government funding violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause. If that argument succeeds, it could upend the charter school sector across the country, some have warned. 

Both Justice Sonya Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson tested that argument by asking hypothetical questions about a state that offered money to painters to paint murals on public buildings. Say the state wanted no messaging, just mountains and landscapes. 

“Would it be a free exercise violation if a particular painter came in and said, ‘Here’s my proposed sketch, it has religious symbols in it, that’s important to me because I’m a religious painter and this is what I would like to do,’ and the state said, ‘I’m sorry, we’re not going to do that?’” Jackson asked.

Jim Campbell, chief legal counsel of the national legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, argued on behalf of the state charter school board.

“I think that case is very different from this case because, in that case, the government is trying to speak its own message on its own buildings,” he said.“Here, it’s giving broad autonomy to the schools to come up with their own mission and their own curriculum, and so this involves that private entity being a part of the process.”

Oklahoma law requires all charter schools to be secular. Black, the University of South Carolina law professor, said St. Isidore’s argument — that they want the same thing offered to other applicants — didn’t hold up under Sotomayor and Jackson’s hypotheticals.

“It actually wants something no one else is getting,” he said.

Gov. Kevin Stitt has been a vocal supporter of St. Isidore, and traveled to D.C. for Wednesday’s arguments. He’s one of the more than 40 people and organizations that filed amicus briefs, or friend of the court briefs, in the case.

In one brief, Colorado and 16 other states with charter school laws that require charter schools to be nonsectarian raised concerns that a ruling for St. Isidore would significantly disrupt the charter school sector and cause many schools to close.

This article first appeared on Oklahoma Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Divided Court Hears Oklahoma Religious Charter School Case appeared first on oklahomawatch.org

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

The article presents a balanced recount of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing regarding the creation of a publicly funded religious charter school in Oklahoma. It neutrally reports on the key arguments, with no evident favor toward either side. The article includes perspectives from both supporters and critics of the school, presenting quotes from justices, legal experts, and stakeholders without a clear ideological slant. Although the justices are identified by their political appointees, the article does not emphasize partisan angles and remains focused on the legal and factual aspects of the case.