An evenly divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that states cannot provide funding to religious charter schools, turning away from a potential decision that would have fundamentally changed K-12 education.
The 4-4 split meant the justices upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling that both Sooner State law and the US Constitution prohibit taxpayer funding from going toward religious schools.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett had recused herself from arguments, having taught at the University of Notre Dame’s law school for about 15 years. The school’s religious liberty clinic had been representing one of the parties in the case, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.
In June 2023, the five-member Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board had approved St. Isidore’s operation application in a 3–2 vote.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond sued the Board in response, arguing the approval was illegal and fretting that the move would “open the floodgates and force taxpayers to fund all manner of religious indoctrination, including radical Islam or even the Church of Satan.”
Both the Trump administration and Oklahoma GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt had sided with the charter school board and St. Isidore’s, which filed a separate lawsuit against Drummond that was consolidated into oral arguments last month.
