April 30 (UPI) — The Supreme Court is being asked to decide if a Catholic school in Oklahoma can be the first to be funded by taxpayers.
Oral arguments will be heard Wednesday if the school can become the first religious charter school in the United States, or if the First Amendment, which separates church and state, means only nonsectarian schools can qualify as charter schools that are publicly funded.
St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, created by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa in 2023, said state funding for charter schools is generally made available to qualified organizations and that the state cannot discriminate based on religion.
The Supreme Court has previously ruled that taxpayer-funded public benefit programs, such as school vouchers and state-run scholarships, are equally available, even if a person or organization has a religious affiliation.
“Oklahoma may exclude religious charter schools because six features, ‘free, open to all, funded by the State, subject to state control, nondiscriminatory, and nonsectarian’ purportedly establish charter schools as ‘public schools’ and thus governmental actors for federal constitutional purposes,” Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond argued.
The state’s highest court ruled last year that taxpayer-funded religious schools violate both the state and U.S. constitutions, and warned that should St. Isidore become the first public religious school in the nation, it would have “sweeping consequences.”
“A ruling that Oklahoma’s charter-school law unconstitutionally discriminates against religion would upend the federal [Charter Schools Program] and charter-school laws nationwide, sowing chaos and confusion for millions of charter-school students,” the state Supreme Court said.
The federal government currently defines charter schools as “public schools of choice that are created in accordance with state laws and are publicly funded and tuition-free.”
A decision in the case is expected by June.