# Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond

Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond (Docket 24-394), consolidated with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, v. Drummond (Docket 24-396) is a pending United States Supreme Court case dealing with the separation of church and state within the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The case deals with the establishment of a nonsecular charter school using public funds by the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board.

## Background

Recent Supreme Court cases have been said to have weakened the Establishment Clause, which has generally defined that public funds should not be used for a nonsecular purpose. In June 2022, the Court ruled in Carson v. Makin that Maine's school voucher program, which as written excluded religious schools, was unconstitutional with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority that "Maine's decision to continue excluding religious schools from its tuition assistance program promotes stricter separation of church and state than the Federal Constitution requires."
Oklahoma's then-current attorney general John M. O'Connor and solicitor general Zach West wrote a memo in December 2022, citing Carson v. Makin, as well as Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue and Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, in claiming that an Oklahoma law barring nonsecular schools from being part of the state's charter school program was unconstitutional, and should such a challenge reach the U.S. Supreme Court, they would likely agree with this position. This memo was supported by Governor Kevin Stitt.
Spurred by the memo, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa applied to the state's virtual charter school board by April 2023, requesting to operate the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School within the state's public charter program. If granted, St. Isidore would be the first nonsecular school to be part of a public school system in the United States. The St. Isidore petition had Stitt's support as well as that of state superintendent Ryan Walters, while the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma said the goal was to create a case that would reach the courts to resolve the question whether the Establishment Clause blocked such schools. The board initially denied the bid in April 2023 on a 5-0 vote, based on the state's constitution and other statues that disallows the use of public money for religious schools, though allowed for a revised petition. By the time of the June 2023 vote, one of the board members had been replaced by the speaker of the Oklahoma house of representatives, Charles McCall, which helped to swing the new vote to pass 3-2. The decision was praised by Stitt and Walters, but other religious groups as well as the state's current attorney general, Gentner Drummond, who took office in January 2023, objected that the decision set a dangerous precedence in regard to the separation of church and state.

## Lower court

Drummond filed suit against the board in October 2023 with the Oklahoma Supreme Court, challenging their vote; in addition to the concerns that the decision violated the state's constitution and existing laws, Drummond claimed that federal funding for the state public schools would be at risk by having a nonsecular school within the system. Oral arguments were held in April 2024, and the Court ruled in June 2024 by a 6-2 decision that establishing St. Isidore violated the United States Constitution, the Oklahoma state constitution, and other state laws that blocked public funds for secular schools.

## Supreme Court

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in January 2025, and scheduled the case to be heard during the October 2024 term. Justice Amy Coney Barrett will take no part in the case; while she did not give a reason, NBC News noted that she formerly taught at Notre Dame Law School, and its religious liberty clinic is representing St. Isidore in the case.