US Supreme Court weighs use of public funds for religious charter school

The United States Supreme Court decided on Friday to consider whether public funds can be used to build a Christian charter school, in a key case that will challenge the traditional separation of church and state.

Last year, the Oklahoma Supreme Court determined that the public funding mechanism for a planned Catholic charter school in the southwestern state violated the Constitution.

Charter schools, which number over 8,000 in the United States, get government funding yet operate independently of the local school system.

They are not permitted to collect tuition or maintain a religious affiliation.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal of the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision, which denied the state Charter School Board’s approval of the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School for 2023.

The separation of church and state is a founding US principle. The First Amendment of the US Constitution forbids the establishment of a national religion or the preference of one religion over another.

An attorney for the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing the school board, welcomed the decision of the Supreme Court to hear the case.

“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” ADF chief legal counsel Jim Campbell said.

“The US Constitution protects St. Isidore’s freedom to operate according to its faith and supports the board’s decision to approve such learning options for Oklahoma families.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and allied groups urged the Supreme Court to uphold the ruling by Oklahoma’s top court.

“The law is clear: Charter schools are public schools and must be secular and open to all students,” they said. “Converting public schools into Sunday schools would be a dangerous sea change for our democracy.”

The conservative-dominated Supreme Court has issued a number of recent rulings blurring the boundaries between church and state, including a decision that a public high school football coach can lead his players in prayer.

The court has also allowed parents to use government vouchers to pay for the education of their children at private religious schools.

Oklahoma’s Republican superintendent Ryan Walters, the highest education official in the state, has been among those pushing for the establishment of the religious charter school.

In June, Walters ordered public schools in Oklahoma, part of America’s so-called “Bible Belt,” to teach the Bible, a move met with lawsuits by parents and teachers.

The Supreme Court did not set a date for oral arguments in the religious charter school case but ordered briefs to be submitted by April 21.