By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Mar 15, 2025 / 11:00 am
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is backing an Oklahoma Catholic school’s bid before the U.S. Supreme Court to become the first religious charter school in the country.
St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School has been battling since 2023 to receive official status as a charter school in Oklahoma.
A charter school is a free, privately managed institution that receives public funding like standard public schools. The school’s opponents, led by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, have argued that the state’s funding of a religious school would violate both Oklahoma statutory and constitutional law regarding the separation of church and state.
The school last year was dealt a blow when the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against its establishment, claiming the school constituted “a governmental entity and a state actor.” The institution, a joint project between the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.
In an amicus brief this week, the USCCB argued that private schools “have long performed the function of educating students” in the United States and that St. Isidore’s participation in the state charter program would “not make it a state actor.”
The bishops argued that charter schools “are not operating state-run schools” and are thus excluded from the state Supreme Court’s “narrowly defined” concept of what constitutes a state actor.
The bishops further pointed to the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which ruled against a Montana constitutional provision that barred public funding of religious institutions. That rule “plainly exclude[d] schools from government aid solely because of religious status,” Chief Justice John Roberts said at the time.
A state “cannot disqualify some private schools” from being subsidized “solely because they are religious,” the U.S. bishops wrote, citing the Espinoza ruling.
“This case presents the question whether states may constitutionally exclude religious schools from charter-school programs open to secular private schools,” the bishops wrote. “The answer to that question is ‘no.’”
Notre Dame Law School’s Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic said this week that fully two dozen amicus briefs were filed at the Supreme Court in support of the Catholic charter school, including from the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Also backing the school were a dozen states including Ohio, Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas, who argued in a brief that they have “a compelling interest in expanding educational opportunities for their citizens.”
Oral arguments over the case will be heard at the Supreme Court on April 30.
