# St. Isidore Catholic Charter Case (2025) **Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond** — the **first Supreme Court test of whether states may directly fund religious charter schools as public schools**. Decided as a **4-4 deadlock** on May 22, 2025, with Justice [[Amy Coney Barrett]] recused (likely because of her ties to Notre Dame law professors who advised the diocese). The 4-4 tie left the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling — that the proposed school violated both state and federal Establishment Clause provisions — in place, but **set no national precedent**. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School was approved by the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board in 2023 as the nation's first **explicitly religious charter school**, jointly proposed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. It would have been **publicly funded** (per Oklahoma's charter funding formula) while providing explicitly Catholic religious instruction — an arrangement that the Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond (a Republican) sued to block, calling it a clear Establishment Clause violation. The case asked the next-frontier question after *[[Carson v. Makin]]*: if states cannot exclude religious schools from publicly funded *voucher* programs, can they constitutionally fund a religious school **directly as a public school**? The 4-4 tie postpones the answer; the next test case is expected within two SCOTUS terms. ## Oklahoma Political Context The *St. Isidore* case split Oklahoma's Republican establishment in an unusual way: **For the religious charter:** - **Governor [[Kevin Stitt]]** — MAGA-aligned; supported the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board's approval - **Superintendent [[Ryan Walters]]** — Culture-war education official; enthusiastic backer of religious charter schools as part of his broader Christian-nationalist education agenda - **Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board** — Approved St. Isidore in June 2023 in a 3-2 vote **Against the religious charter:** - **Attorney General Gentner Drummond** — An institutionalist Republican who sued to block the charter, calling it "the most egregious violation of the Establishment Clause in the history of American public education." Drummond's opposition was rooted in conservative constitutional originalism, not progressive church-state separationism — he argued that the state operating a religious school was precisely what the Founders prohibited. The Drummond-Walters split illustrates a fault line within the school-choice coalition between **institutionalist conservatives** who respect traditional church-state boundaries and **Christian nationalists** who view those boundaries as hostile to religious liberty. ## The Litigation The [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] represented the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board. ADF attorney **John Bursch** argued the case before the Supreme Court. The legal argument extended the *Carson* logic: if states cannot exclude religious schools from voucher programs because of their religious use, then states also cannot exclude religious organizations from operating charter schools — which are, legally, public schools authorized by the state. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against St. Isidore, finding violations of both the state and federal constitutions. The U.S. Supreme Court took the case to resolve whether the Establishment Clause prohibits a state from authorizing a religious organization to operate a publicly funded charter school. ## Barrett's Recusal Justice [[Amy Coney Barrett]] recused herself, resulting in the 4-4 tie that left the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling in place. Barrett's recusal was reportedly tied to her relationship with **Notre Dame Law School's [[Religious Liberty]] Clinic**, whose faculty had advised the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City on the St. Isidore application. Barrett taught at Notre Dame Law School for fifteen years before her Supreme Court appointment and maintained close ties to the institution. The recusal was decisive: without Barrett, the Court's conservative bloc lacked the fifth vote needed to reverse the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Legal observers widely assumed that Barrett would have sided with the majority in a full-Court decision, producing a 5-4 ruling in favor of religious charter schools. ## The 4-4 Outcome A **per curiam** 4-4 affirmance sets no national precedent — it simply leaves the lower court ruling intact for the parties. The Oklahoma Supreme Court's holding that the St. Isidore charter violated the Establishment Clause remains binding in Oklahoma but has no precedential force in any other state. The constitutional question — whether states may directly fund religious charter schools as public schools — remains open for the next vehicle. ## The Doctrinal Frontier *St. Isidore* represents a qualitative escalation beyond the *Zelman*-through-*Carson* arc: | Model | Status Post-Carson | St. Isidore Question | |-------|-------------------|---------------------| | **Vouchers/ESAs** | States **must** include religious schools | Settled | | **Tax-credit scholarships** | States **must** include religious schools | Settled | | **Charter schools** | **Open** — can states directly fund religious schools as public schools? | **Unresolved** | The distinction matters because charter schools are legally **public schools** — they receive per-pupil funding directly from the state, operate under state authorization, and are subject to state oversight. A religious charter school would be a **state-funded, state-authorized religious institution** in a way that voucher-receiving religious schools are not. This crosses the line from "government money reaching religious schools through private choices" (the *Zelman* framework) to "government directly operating a religious school" — a fundamentally different Establishment Clause question. ## Aftermath After the 4-4 decision, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City **pivoted to operating St. Isidore as a private online school** beginning September 2025, funded through private donations and tuition rather than state charter funding. The pivot preserved the school's existence while the legal question remained unresolved. ## Next Vehicles The school-choice litigation network is actively seeking the next test case. The most likely vehicles: **Texas** — The state's **$1 billion voucher/ESA law** (passed 2025 after years of legislative failure) creates a large-scale program that will generate religious-school funding disputes. Texas's political alignment (Abbott, Patrick) makes it fertile ground for an aggressive test case. **Florida** — Already has the nation's largest school-choice infrastructure; a religious charter application would generate a clean vehicle. **Tennessee** — Recently expanded school-choice programs under Governor Lee; politically aligned with a test case. The next vehicle will likely reach the Court within one to two terms. If Barrett participates, the expected 5-4 or 6-3 majority in favor of religious charter schools would complete the transformation of the Establishment Clause from a barrier to religious-school funding into a dead letter in the education context. ## KB Significance *St. Isidore* is the **current frontier** of the school-choice legal campaign. The four-case arc from *[[Zelman v. Simmons-Harris]]* through *[[Carson v. Makin]]* methodically eliminated every constitutional barrier to public funding of religious schools through voucher and scholarship programs. *St. Isidore* asks the ultimate question: can the state directly operate a religious school as a public institution? The 4-4 tie is a temporary reprieve for church-state separationists. The Court's conservative majority — assuming Barrett's participation in a future case — has demonstrated through *Trinity Lutheran*, *Espinoza*, and *Carson* that it views exclusion of religious institutions from public funding as a Free Exercise violation rather than an Establishment Clause requirement. The question is not whether the Court will eventually permit religious charter schools, but when. The Drummond-Walters split within Oklahoma's Republican Party may preview a broader conservative fracture: between Christian nationalists who want the state to fund and promote religious education, and institutionalist conservatives who believe the Establishment Clause means what it says. ## See Also - [[Carson v. Makin]] — The immediately preceding case; completed the voucher/ESA arc - [[Espinoza v. Montana]] — Neutralized Blaine Amendments - [[Trinity Lutheran v. Comer]] — Established non-exclusion principle - [[Zelman v. Simmons-Harris]] — The foundational case - [[Amy Coney Barrett]] — Recused; would likely have been the fifth vote - [[Alliance Defending Freedom]] — Litigated the case - [[School Choice Ecosystem]] — The movement - [[School Choice]] — The concept