Okla. court weighs religious charter school
Case could open doors across the country
The Oklahoma Supreme Court heard a case last week that could pry open the doors to publicly funded religious charter schools across the country.
Last summer, in a narrow vote, the state’s virtual charter school board approved a proposal to establish St. Isidore of Seville Catholic School. Operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, it would be run similarly to private parochial schools, with Catholic beliefs and principles incorporated into academic subjects and the fabric of campus life.
St. Isidore would be the first charter school of its kind in the nation. It’s set to start classes in mid-August, according to court documents.
The school’s supporters note that the U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled three times in favor of religious programs’ access to taxpayer dollars. They also have pointed to the Catholic Church’s track record of producing strong academic results.
However, the plan has faced skepticism from the get-go, including from the state’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, who led arguments at the high court last week against the virtual school board’s members. Opponents say operating a religious charter school on public funding violates the constitutional protection separating church and state.
Charter schools are privately run but publicly funded, which gives them more leeway than traditional public schools to dictate their own curriculum and teaching styles. Some say the funding source also subjects them to the same legal parameters that apply to other taxpayer-funded institutions.
Drummond argued that if the state were to proceed with St. Isidore, it would also allow the establishment of state-sponsored Scientology or Islamic schools, for instance.
“Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism,” Drummond said when filing the lawsuit last fall. “Tomorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Sharia law.”
The case is among several in recent years to test how far the courts are willing to bend to support the blending of religion and public education.
“Make no mistake. This case is not about charter schools,” said Todd Ziebarth from the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, which opposes the establishment of St. Isidore, in a statement. “It is about fundamentally altering one of the founding principles of our nation.”
State schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, a former teacher turned conservative firebrand who has become a fixture in efforts to remove “liberal indoctrination” from classrooms, has repeatedly tried to insert himself and involve the agencies he oversees in the case. The high court has rejected those attempts.
Separately, Walters announced last week that he would open a school choice office within the state Department of Education.
There’s also a second suit challengkinds
Charter schools like the one in the case before the Oklahoma Supreme Court are privately run but publicly funded, giving them more leeway than traditional public schools to dictate their own curriculum and teaching styles. ing St. Isidore, brought last July by a group of parent activists, faith leaders and education advocates. They are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, among other organizations. However, the parents’ suit has faced legal tumult. The judge assigned to the case was removed due to a conflict of interest. The new judge has received dueling filings from each side, including requests for dismissal.
Phil Sechler, the attorney for the virtual charter school board and senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group, told the Oklahoma justices that St. Isidore is not a public entity because it is “privately owned and operated” by representatives of the Catholic Church.
Nonetheless, he argued, not allowing the school to receive public money like Oklahoma’s 32 other charter schools would amount to religious discrimination that would violate the Constitution.
Sechler said the charter school program set up by the state is available to all of organizations. The Supreme Court, he argued, has already made clear that programs like the one to create charter schools can’t open participation to private organizations but exclude religious ones.
With a packed gallery watching, the Oklahoma justices seemed skeptical of the argument that the prospective school is a private entity and not a public one.
Drummond told the justices that he, as lead attorney for the state, sued the virtual charter school board “to defend the separation of church and state.”
“This case is not about exclusion of a religious entity from government aid, which would implicate the free exercise of religion,” he said. “Rather, it is about the state creation of a religious school which unequivocally establishes religion.”
As soon as St. Isidore signed a contract to become a charter school, it became a public entity, Drummond said. He noted that public money would begin flowing to the school July 1.
“If they said, ‘Hey, we’re a public school,’ they lose,” Drummond said afterward. “They are a public school. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it’s a duck. It’s a public school.”
The nine justices seemed to understand the gravity of the case. Justice Noma Gurich, in particular, noted several times that St. Isidore would be the nation’s first religion-based charter school. Other justices asked about the religious aspects of the school’s curriculum and how many of the school’s board members were Catholic. Michael McGinley, the attorney for St. Isidore, said all five board members are Catholic.
Yvonne Kauger, the longest-serving justice on the court – she was appointed in 1984 – noted if the justices ruled in favor of St. Isidore, it would set a major precedent.
“If the wall (between church and state) comes down, it’s ‘Katy, bar the door,’ ” she said. “Everyone will be affected.”
Murray Evans is an Oklahoman reporter; Alia Wong is a USA TODAY reporter