SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
st isidore of seville catholic virtual school
Oklahoma Supreme Court Blocks First US Religious Public Charter School
One coalition said the ruling "safeguards public education and upholds the separation of religion and government."
Jun 25, 2024
Faith leaders, parents, and educators on Tuesday applauded the Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling against the establishment of the first U.S. taxpayer-funded religious charter school—which was widely seen as a test case for Christian nationalists' broader efforts to break down the barrier between church and state as well as further undermine public education.
The court's decision against St. Isidore of Seville Virtual Catholic Charter School came in a case filed last October by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Unlike some fellow Republicans, he argued that the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board's approval of the online institution violated the state and federal constitutions.
"This decision is a tremendous victory for religious liberty," Gentner said in response to the ruling. "The framers of the U.S. Constitution and those who drafted Oklahoma's Constitution clearly understood how best to protect religious freedom: by preventing the state from sponsoring any religion at all."
"Now Oklahomans can be assured that our tax dollars will not fund the teachings of Sharia Law or even Satanism," he continued. "While I understand that the governor and other politicians are disappointed with this outcome, I hope that the people of Oklahoma can rejoice that they will not be compelled to fund radical religious schools that violate their faith."
"If this school is kept alive through appeals, it will continue to present an existential threat to the great state of Oklahoma and to the United States writ large."
The decision was also praised by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Education Law Center, and Freedom From Religion Foundation, which—along with local lawyers—represent Oklahomans challenging the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa's attempt to create a publicly funded Catholic school.
"The Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision safeguards public education and upholds the separation of religion and government. Charter schools are public schools that must be secular and serve all students," the groups—which filed a brief supporting Gentner's suit—said in a joint statement Tuesday.
"St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which plans to discriminate against students, families, and staff and indoctrinate students into one religion, cannot operate as a public charter school," the coalition added. "We will continue our efforts to protect public education and religious freedom, including the separation of church and state."
American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and AFT-Oklahoma president Mary Best similarly welcomed the decision as "a crucial victory for religious liberty, pluralism, and freedom over the forces of extremism and sectarianism."
"One of the clearest foundations of American democracy is the freedom to practice, or not to practice, religion," they said. "The framers never intended to require public funding of religious institutions or schools, and, in fact, religious freedom itself is reliant on the distinction. Liberty ends when someone is compelled to support another's private beliefs, and if the attorney general had lost, Oklahoma would have been forced to siphon millions of dollars from public schools into private hands."
"The combination of the Constitution's free exercise clause and the concept of separation of church and state underpins our democracy, and this decision preserves that distinction," the AFT leaders added. "This case should never have had to be brought in the first place; a charter school for religious purposes paid for by public money should have been rejected as unconstitutional from the start. If this school is kept alive through appeals, it will continue to present an existential threat to the great state of Oklahoma and to the United States writ large."
The Oklahomanreported that "it's a virtual certainty the ruling Tuesday will be appealed, likely to a federal court," and shared statements from Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley and Tulsa Bishop David Konderla as well as Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, a former state education secretary who, as the newspaper noted, "tried—and failed—three times to insert himself into the legal case before the state Supreme Court."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Leonard Leo Allies Lead Effort to Establish Publicly Funded Religious School
A legal clinic at University of Notre Dame has helped represent the school while its officials have maintained ties to right-wing Supreme Court justices.
Dec 29, 2023
Oklahoma's newly approved religious charter school, which proponents hope will serve as the basis of a legal test case before the U.S. Supreme Court that could alter the principle of separation of church and state, is being boosted by a number of right-wing groups with ties to Federalist Society co-chair Leonard Leo, according to new reporting—including a legal clinic with links to some of the high court's most conservative justices.
As Common Dreams reported in July, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board earlier this year gave preliminary approval for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would be the country's first publicly funded religious school if it survives legal challenges. The school board also approved a contract with the institution in October.
Politico on Friday detailed groups that are aiding the effort to open St. Isidore, including a legal clinic at the University of Notre Dame that was announced shortly before Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed.
At the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative (RLI), law professor Nicole Stelle Garnett is representing St. Isidore in a case before the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which was initiated by state Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond. The state argues that the establishment of St. Isidore violates both the Oklahoma and U.S. constitutions; the state requires charters schools to be nonsectarian by statute.
Since representing the school, Garnett has also joined the board of the right-wing Federalist Society, which has ties to the Supreme Court's conservative justices and which has helped reshape the federal court system, pushing for the confirmations of far-right judges.
Garnett is close personal friends with Barrett and has hosted Justice Clarence Thomas at her home in South Bend, while Brendan Wilson, a corporate attorney who joined the clinic's legal team in 2021, purchased Barrett's home for nearly $1 million around the time that the RLI began advocating for right-wing causes at the Supreme Court by filing amicus briefs.
That real estate deal drew scrutiny from ethics watchdogs earlier this year, as reports surfaced of Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito accepting luxury trips and other financial gifts from Republican donors.
The RLI also announced in 2020 that its director, Stephanie Barclay, would take a leave of absence to serve as a clerk for another conservative Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch—during the same period that the clinic was working with St. Isidore.
In 2022, the clinic funded a trip to Rome for Alito.
Paul Collins, a legal studies professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, told Politico that St. Isidore's work with the Leo-linked RLI shows that "the Christian conservative legal movement... has its fingerprints all over what's going on in Oklahoma."
"They recognize the opportunity to get a state to fund a religious institution is a watershed moment," Collins told the outlet. "They have a very, very sympathetic audience at the Supreme Court. When you have that on the Supreme Court you're going to put a lot of resources into bringing these cases quickly."
A spokesperson for Leo declined to comment for Politico's article. A spokesperson for RLI declined to tell the outlet whether Barclay had been involved in work on behalf of St. Isidore before, during, or after she worked with Gorsuch, and whether Garnett and Wilson had discussed the school's case with any justices.
Alliance Defending Freedom, the right-wing group that has lobbied to curtail reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights through the courts, is representing the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, and counts among its financial benefactors the Donors Trust, a group that government watchdog Accountable.US called the "'Dark Money ATM' for Hate Groups" last month.
Leo's Judicial Education Project, which pushes for the appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices and promoted views that deny the scientific consensus on climate change, has counted Donors Trust as its main beneficiary.
Peter Greene, a retired teacher and blogger who focuses on education issues, said the push for a publicly funded Christian school "has attracted all the usual Christianist power."
Changing the Supreme Court's interpretation of separation of church and state, said progressive news outlet The Tennessee Holler, "has always been their goal."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Faith Leaders, Parents, and Public Education Advocates Sue Over First US Religious Charter School
"Governmental sanctioning of a religious charter school drives a stake in the heart of religious liberty and seeks to eviscerate the fundamental precept of the separation of church and state," said the head of a plaintiff group.
Jul 31, 2023
A nonprofit that supports public education and nine Oklahoma residents on Monday filed a lawsuit to stop the state from sponsoring and funding the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the first religious charter school in the United States.
A legal challenge has been
brewing since the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the online institution in a 3-2 vote last month. St. Isidore, a "collaborative effort between the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa" intended to provide "a quality Catholic education" to children statewide, is set to open for the 2024-25 academic year.
"Religious liberty allows us to worship according to our faith. But forcing Oklahomans to fund religious teachings with their tax dollars is not religious freedom. It is state-sponsored religion, which violates the Oklahoma Constitution and the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act," said Misty Bradley, chair of the Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee (OKPLAC), in a statement.
"Governmental sanctioning of a religious charter school drives a stake in the heart of religious liberty and seeks to eviscerate the fundamental precept of the separation of church and state," added Bradley, whose group has joined faith leaders, parents, and public education advocates in challenging the Oklahoma board's recent approval of St. Isidore.
The plaintiffs are represented by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), Education Law Center, and Freedom From Religion Foundation, who are assisted by Oklahoma-based counsel Odom & Sparks PLLC and J. Douglas Mann.
As Daniel Mach and Heather L. Weaver, respectively the director and a senior staff attorney at the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, explained in a Monday blog post:
Oklahoma's public school system includes both brick-and-mortar and virtual charter schools. State statutory provisions and the state constitution require these schools and all other public schools to remain open to all students—regardless of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, religion, LGBTQ status, disability, or any other characteristic—and to teach a nonreligious curriculum. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School will do neither...
In its application, St. Isidore asserts that it... will participate "in the evangelizing mission of the church." To that end, the school's application makes clear that it will discriminate in admissions and student discipline, as necessary to satisfy the Catholic Church's religious beliefs. This means that students could be denied admission or punished based on their religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other failures to comply with Catholic doctrine. St. Isidore even refused to certify that it will not discriminate against students with disabilities if accommodating a student would violate Catholic beliefs. The school also plans to discriminate in employment.
"I am invested in secular public schools because I believe in the Oklahoma Constitution and a founding principle of our nation: Religious freedom can only be preserved if the state does not establish or support any religion," said plaintiff Leslie Briggs.
Briggs is the legal director of Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, and she and her wife have a child who will soon enter public schools. She added that "I also find state-sanctioned discrimination abhorrent and refuse to accept my tax dollars being used to promote discrimination against children and families that look like mine."
Other plaintiffs include a mother of two children on the autism spectrum, a parent of a public school student with disabilities, and a reverend who is also the great-grandson of a former Chilocco Indian Agricultural School resident.
Plaintiff Brenda Lené, founder and operator of the Facebook group "Oklahoma Education Needs/Donations" and parent of a child in public school, warned that "giving public tax dollars to a school like St. Isidore not only opens the door to discrimination, but it also takes even more funding from our secular public schools and teachers, which will have a disastrous effect on the already underfunded public education system and create more financial inequality."
St. Isidore is expected to cost taxpayers more than $26 million over its first five years of operation, according to The Oklahoman.
The newspaper noted conflicting comments from a representative for local Catholic leaders and the Republican state attorney general:
"News of a suit from AU comes as no surprise since they have indicated early in this process their intentions to litigate," said Brett Farley, a lobbyist representing the diocese and archdiocese. "We remain confident that the Oklahoma court will ultimately agree with the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in favor of religious liberty."
The nation's high court recently ruled private schools could receive public funds from school voucher programs and government grants. Attorney General Gentner Drummond, disagreeing with his predecessor John O'Connor, argued these cases have "little precedential value" to charter school law and no legal history exists to prove charter schools are private.
Drummond had called out the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board after the June vote, declaring that "the approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers."
"It's extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the State to potential legal action that could be costly," he said.
The Oklahoman reported that after a 3-1 vote last week, the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom will represent the board in the case, as Drummond has withdrawn his office's legal services for matters related to St. Isidore.
Though filed in state court—specifically, in the District Court of Oklahoma County—the case is expected to draw attention from across the country. It comes after the U.S. Supreme Court last month declined to hear a challenge to a federal appeals court ruling that charter schools receiving public funds, like traditional public schools, must abide by the national Constitution and law.
"A school that claims to be simultaneously public and religious would be a sea change for American democracy," AU president and CEO Rachel Laser said Monday. "It's hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public school families than the state establishing a public school that is run as a religious school."
"We're witnessing a full-on assault on church-state separation and public education—and religious public charter schools are the next frontier," Laser stressed. "America needs a national recommitment to church-state separation."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular