The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear one of the most closely watched religion cases in the country: a battle over the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s plan to fund a first-of-its-kind religious school.
If the justices side with the school board, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School will receive direct state funding, just like regular public schools, while still being allowed to offer religious instruction and consider only Catholic applicants for leadership roles.
Such a ruling would break down a boundary that’s been part of the education system for decades and likely also pave the way for the creation of religious charter schools in other states.
By taking up the case, the justices agreed to revisit an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling against St. Isidore and the charter school board, which said the concept of a religious charter school violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause.
Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general, who brought the lawsuit against the charter school board, has argued that allowing St. Isidore to operate as a religious charter school amounts to allowing government officials to run a religious institution, according to The Washington Post.
The Oklahoma case arrives at the Supreme Court on the heels of several other cases related to religion and education.
- Last week, the justices agreed to hear a case brought by a group of religious parents who want the option to opt their kids out of classroom discussions on certain LGBTQ issues, as the Deseret News previously reported.
- In 2022, the court ruled that religious schools should be allowed to participate in a state voucher program that supports students in rural areas who lacked easy access to public schools.
- In a similar case in 2020, justices said that Montana could not exclude religious schools from a state-funded scholarship program.
Some religious freedom experts argue that a ruling in favor of St. Isidore would be a natural extension of those 2020 and 2022 rulings, while others say that direct funding for religious schools is very different than voucher or scholarship programs.
The Supreme Court could hear oral arguments in the case as soon as April, in which case a decision would be expected by early July.