The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to examine a high profile case that could open the door to allow public dollars to immediately fund religious schools.
The widely monitored case from Oklahoma could turn the line between the Church and the State in education and will come to court whose conservative majority have widely embraced the role of religion in public life.
The case focuses on a proposal for the first school of religious charter of the Nation, St. Isidore of the Catholic Virtual School of Seville. The school would be online and its curriculum will incorporate religious teachings into all courses, including mathematics and reading courses.
As a charter school, it will run independently of traditional public schools. However, the dollars of public taxpayers will pay for the school and it would be free to attend students.
The question of whether the government can fully fund a religious school has proven to be particularly divisive within the school selection movement and throughout Oklahoma. Some conservative Christian leaders, including Governor Kevin Stitt and Ryan Walters, State Inspector Firebrand, who tried to demand teaching from the Bible in public schools, supported the creation of St. Isidore.
They called on the Supreme Court to take over the case, believing that the Conservative Court would in favor of the school.
A coalition of religious leaders, supporters of public schools and some other state Republicans say that the proposal is unconstitutional. The Republican Attorney General of Oklahoma, Gentner Drummond, claimed to “open the floods and force taxpayers to fund any religious catechism, including radical Islam or even the church of Satan”.
After St. Isidore by a State Council in June 2023 in a close vote of 3 to-2, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma prevented it from being created. The judges wrote in a majority opinion that the school would “create a slippery slope” that could lead to “the destruction of the freedom of Oklahomans to exercise religion without fear of government intervention”.
However, as more democratic state legislators move to support school coupons and other options for parents to use public money to educate their children in private schools, including religious schools, some legal experts believe that charter schools will become one Another big arena in the discussion.
Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School, said that a Supreme Court ruling that allows religious charter schools “would represent nothing less than a change in the sea in constitutional law”.
“It is difficult to overestimate the importance of this opinion on our constitutional order and the wider American society,” Mr Driver said.
The case will present new training questions for the 6-3 conservative majority of the US Supreme Court, which has shown an opening in religion in the public sphere.
Justice Amy Conservative Amy Conservative Barrett has recalled herself from the case. He did not explain why, but Justice Barrett is close friends with a Professor Notre Dame Law who helped advise St. Isidore.
In a 2022 ruling, the court ruled that a high school football coach had the right to pray in the match after his team’s games.
Other recent cases have prevented Maine and Montana from the exception of religious schools from state tuition or scholarships to students in private schools. Justice leader John G. Roberts Jr. He wrote in both cases that states are not required to support religious education, but those who choose to subsidize private schools cannot discriminate against religious.
The supporters of St. Isidore argue that the obstruction of a religious school of charter by receiving funding violates the protection of religious freedom of the first amendment. Jim Campbell, the head of the Legal Adviser of Alliance Defenting Freedom, a legal team representing the charter of the Oklahoma State, praised the court’s ruling to hear the case.
“Oklahoma’s parents and children are better with more educational choices, no less,” Mr Campbell said in a statement. “There is a great irony of government officials who claim to be in favor of religious freedom that distinguishes St. Isidore because of his universal beliefs.”
The school is initially expected to open in August and will be managed by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Cathedral of Tiles. School leaders say that it would accept students of all religions.
But opponents say they will clash with the constitutional ban on government creation of religion, violating religious freedom. “The conversion of public schools into Sunday schools would have been a dangerous change in the sea for our democracy,” said many organizations, including US United to separate the Church and the State into a joint statement on Friday.
For decades, the hybrid nature of charter schools – the exchange of characteristics of both public schools and private institutions – makes it difficult for the courts to determine how different education issues should apply, according to Preston Green, a professor at the University of Connectic. Educational Law Studies.
Mr Green also said that he believes that St. Isidore “could be very attractive” for conservative judges – and that if the court ultimately sides with the charter school, “the consequences are potentially huge”.
In the movement to abolish the barriers to religious education, “charter schools are truly the next borders,” Mr Green said. “And it doesn’t end here.”
