In the case Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School v. Drummond, a catholic organization is attempting to start the first publicly funded religious charter school in the United States. The school is called “St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School”. The school’s application was approved by the Oklahoma Charter School Board but it was challenged by Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond. His argument stated that public funding for a religious school was a violation of the First Amendment of the constitution. The reason for this was because public money would be used to fund religious institutions which was an unconstitutional lack of separation between church and state.
This case has not been decided by the supreme court and it raises several questions about religion and the constitution. The school intends to teach a curriculum that includes religious teachings while at the same time being funded by the public as a charter school. For this reason, it raises questions about constitutionality.
The main issues at hand with regard to the constitution are that on one hand, the supporters of the Catholic school are arguing that denying them the ability to participate in the charter school sponsorship program is not allowing them to freely express their free exercise of religion. On the other hand, the group that disagrees with the establishment of the religious charter school is arguing that by founding a religious school with public money, this is an unconstitutional establishment of religion. The conflict is a test of these two constitutional principles because it causes courts to navigate the balance between allowing people to exercise their right to exercise their religious beliefs while also preventing an unconstitutional lack of separation between church and state.
In my opinion, the charter school being funded by the public is unconstitutional. The reason for this is because the school includes a curriculum designed to teach students in alignment with the Catholic faith. While people should be able to freely exercise their religious beliefs, it should not be funded by the public due to the fact that the public may not share the same Catholic beliefs as the Charter school. In addition to this, if the school were allowed to use public funding to support itself, then it would establish precedent that would promote the use of taxpayer funds to support religion.
In Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, the supreme court ruled in favor of the school in a case where the issue at hand was whether or not it was constitutional to exclude religious schools from tuition assistance programs. This was an example of when the court ruled in favor of the free exercise clause. However, this case is different from Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School v. Drummond because it was regarding private school tuition, not public charter schools. Since the charter school is funding public education, the outcome of this case should be different. When a private religious school is aiming to use public funds, it is more reasonable as to why the funds are allowed to be used because the school’s identity as a private religious school is being challenged if they are not allowed to. This would support the fact that the inability to use funds is a violation of their free-exercise orf religion. However, in a public charter school, the school is a public institution and for this reason, the identity of the school is more sensitive in that it must align with the state and the funding should be secular. For these reasons, the use of public funding for a public charter school is an unconstitutional establishment of religion because it directly funds a government institution.
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/30/supreme-court-charter-schools?utm_source=