WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in a case concerning whether states have the right to exclude religious schools from charter school programs on the grounds of their religious status.
Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond concerns Oklahoma’ charter contract with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which according to Liberty Counsel was approved by the Statewide Charter School Board in 2023, which was challenged by the state attorney general on the grounds that state law forbids the authorization of a “charter school or program that is affiliated with a nonpublic sectarian school or religious institution.” The Oklahoma Supreme Court sided against the district last year, finding that private charter schools constituted “state actors” and “governmental entities.”
During Wednesday’s proceedings, several Republican-appointed justices expressed skepticism that excluding religious entities could pass constitutional muster under the First Amendment or Supreme Court precedent, while liberal jurists seemed to imply that religious education was inherently faulty, SCOTUSblog and CNN report. Justice Amy Coney Barrett has recused herself from the case, opening the possibility of a tie that could resolve the immediate question for Oklahoma but not set nationwide precedent.
“All the religious school is saying is ‘don’t exclude us on account of our religion,’” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. “Our cases have made very clear – and I think those are some of the most important cases we’ve had – of saying you can’t treat religious people and religious institutions and religious speech as second class in the United States.”
By contrast, “what would you do with a charter school that doesn’t want to teach evolution? Or doesn’t want to teach history, including the history of slavery,” asked left-wing Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican appointee who has often sided with the liberal wing, pressed both sides on their legal reasoning without signaling his own leanings, prompting some to dub him the swing vote on which the final outcome will hang.
The current Supreme Court is often unpredictable on conservative and pro-family goals, despite six of its nine current members having been appointed by Republican presidents.
The Court has delivered conservatives major victories on gun rights, environmental regulation, affirmative action, and, most significantly, abortion with the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but it has also issued dismissive rulings on COVID-19 shot mandates, religious freedom, and LGBT ideology to the point that conservative Justice Samuel Alito has taken the rare step of criticizing Barrett and Kavanaugh for lacking the “fortitude” to resolve such issues.
“The Constitution does not permit the government to dictate which schools are ‘too religious’ for school choice programs,” Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver says. “Faith-based, virtual schools offer parents an alternative when government-run schools fail to provide a safe or ideologically neutral environment for the families they claim to serve. The Supreme Court has made clear that when a state attempts to impose an educational model that contradicts the deeply held beliefs of parents, it trespasses on the Constitution. School choice strengthens education, and the High Court has the chance once again to affirm that parents have the right to direct the education of their children.”
