The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine whether taxpayers have to fund religious schools.
The Oklahoma state Supreme Court ruled last year that the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma could not establish a virtual public religious charter school. The school board that governs both brick-and-mortar and virtual charter schools in the state is now asking the high court to strike down that decision.
Oklahoma State Charter School Board v. Drummond is the latest in a string of so-called “religious freedom” cases that have gone before the Supreme Court in recent years. A win for the plaintiff could bring us closer to the conservative movement’s goal of forcing Christianity into public life.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a far-right legal organization that has been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, is representing the school board. The group, which has been involved in myriad cases about religious liberty, is framing the issue as one of school choice.
“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” Jim Campbell, the group’s chief legal counsel, said in a statement. “There’s great irony in state officials who claim to be in favor of religious liberty discriminating against St. Isidore because of its Catholic beliefs.”
In June 2023, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 to allow the state’s Catholic church to open an online public charter school for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond blasted the decision, in a break with the Republican Party.
“The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” he said in a statement. “It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars.”
Drummond asked the state’s Supreme Court to intervene, and the court ruled 8-1 that a religious school funded with public money was a violation of both the state and U.S. constitutions. “Under Oklahoma law, a charter school is a public school,” Justice James Winchester wrote in the court’s opinion. “As such, a charter school must be nonsectarian.”
Drummond supported the decision, saying the ruling would protect residents from having to fund religious ideology. “Now Oklahomans can be assured that our tax dollars will not fund the teachings of Sharia Law or even Satanism,” he said.
Both Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and Ryan Walters, the Oklahoma superintendent of public instruction, supported the charter school board’s desire to establish the virtual Catholic school.
Oklahoma has been at the forefront of the issue of whether — and how — Christianity can be part of public school curriculum.
Walters has tried to mandate that all public schools in the state use the Christian Bible, and he supports lawmakers who are trying to get the Ten Commandments displayed in classrooms. He is currently being sued by a group of legal organizations, including Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union, over the Bible mandate.
The groups weighed in on the Supreme Court case.
“Oklahoma taxpayers, including our clients, should not be forced to fund a religious public school that plans to indoctrinate students into one religion and discriminate against students and staff,” the groups wrote in a statement. “Converting public schools into Sunday schools would be a dangerous sea change for our democracy.”
The Supreme Court’s decision in this case will be felt in public school systems around the country and would likely be a win for conservative lawmakers. Louisiana, Missouri and Texas have all either introduced or passed laws that require the display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms. Texas has also created a Bible-based curriculum for its public schools — and although it’s not required, any school district that uses it can be rewarded with extra funding.
The effort to get Christianity into public schools is also outlined in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for a conservative president that has been embraced by the Trump administration. The massive document calls for replacing the Department of Education with a school voucher scheme, in which parents could use taxpayer funds to send their children to alternative schools — many of them religious.
The conservative-majority Supreme Court has repeatedly sided with plaintiffs arguing for their “religious freedom” in recent years. Last week, the justices heard arguments in a case about whether parents should be allowed to let their children opt out of required curricula that use books with LGBTQ+ themes. The court seemed poised to rule in favor of the parents.