Legal Issue(s): NA
Case Description
Oklahoma runs a charter school program with benefits given to those with whom it contracts—unless you run a religious charter institution as is the case in St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond.
The state attorney general cut off funding to St. Isidore because of its religious and academic choices, creating a clear violation of the Free Exercise Clause. The state has made it clear that if St. Isidore abandons its religious position, the money will flow again.
The flawed thinking, which has been used for decades, is that any time a religious organization receives state money, it becomes a state actor, and this violates the establishment of religion side of the First Amendment.
Similar cases have gone to the U.S. Supreme Court involving indirect aid, as in the tuition grants to parents in Maine, and direct aid, as in the case of Trinity Lutheran, which sought publicly available funds for a new playground. Both the parents and the school won in these cases.
St. Isidore lost at the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which found the school to be in violation of the “separation of church and state” laws Oklahoma aims to uphold.
The Center filed an amicus brief in support of St. Isidore asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse this decision.
