Washington – The Supreme Court Wednesday morning hearing the argument in a high-profile dispute in an online Catholic attempt in Oklahoma Charter schoolA case that can open the door to the public dollar flowing directly to religious schools.
A verdict on behalf of the school, St. Eisido of the Seville Catholic Virtual School, the country’s first religious charter schools and 45 states and Colombia districts, as well as the Federal Charter school program, all of which need to be adopted as nonsectorians, Oklahoma’s Dramund, Oklahoma’s Dramunda, Oklahoma’s school.
Jesse Hill, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, focusing on law and religion, said, “If the Supreme Court runs the charter school, the direct flow of funds from the government and the direct flow of the government to a religious entity and financial support from the government,”.
He said that the state of St. Esido was “literally asking to establish a religious school. It was basically creating a religious school, formed a relationship between religious entities and states that we had never seen before.”
A decision followed by the Supreme Court Three Judgment Recent years that were in favor of religious plaintiffs, which all allowed public funds to be used for religious institutions. However, supporters of St. Esidore argued that its position would not only apply to those decisions and create a new policy.
“The thread of consolidation is the idea that once the government once opened a program to distribute a program or deal with people, it could not combine religious people or institutions for special inconvenience,” said Richard Garnet, a professor of Notre Dame Law School, who directed its program in Church, State and Society.
Form a Catholic Charter School
Oklahoma has proposed charter schools in its public education system since 3 and institutions like the other five states and Federal Charter School Programs “need to be non -sectorians in its programs, admission policies, employment practice and all other activities.” According to a report by the Oklahoma State Department of Education, the state has at least 5 charter schools in the state that serve more than 5,700 students and they received $ 1 million from the state and $ 69 million of federal funds from 2022 to 2021 schools a year.
In January 2021, Archdosis of Oklahoma City and Tulsa Diosis St Icidore formed and operated the Catholic School of Seville Virtual Charter School Inc., according to the court record. That May, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board of St. Esido applied for establishing the school as a Virtual Charter School that fully incorporated the teachings of the magistrate of the Catholic Church “and” they fully include it [teachings] In every case of the school. “
According to the court documents, the school is approximately and estimated by the initial enrollment of 500 students.
Before the board’s vote, Drummond warned against the approval of St ICidor’s application and said that the previous analysis from the school supporting the school could be used as the basis of taxpayer-financial religious school, which is exactly [St. Isidore] Trying to be “
Drummond also warned that the approved for St ICidor’s application to become a charter school “would make the slippel OPE.”
“I suspect most Oklahumans would like to provide their tax dollars to fund a religious school whose theories oppose their own faith,” he said. “Unfortunately, a charter’s approval by one belief will be forced to approval the charter schools by all beliefs, even most Oklahumans will consider to be blasphemous and ineligible of public funds.”
Nevertheless, the Charter School Board voted 3-2 for the approval of St ICDor’s application and entered the IT and School St ICDor in October 2023 to an agreement established as a Charter School.
In that month, Drammond directly sued the Board in the Oklahoma Supreme Court and asked to withdraw the Charter Agreement and to declare St ICDore the Charter School to be illegal.
The Attorney General was in front of the Supreme Court of the State, which ruled that a public charter school in St ICidor, it violated the state’s requirements that these entities were unreasonable, as well as the establishment of the first amendment, because it “allowed state spending on direct support of religious curriculum and activities”.
“The state will finance a religious school directly and encourage students to participate,” the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which is divided into -2-2, has been found.
Both Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board and St ICidor asked the Supreme Court to review the decision and agreed to do it in January.
A “main breach of” on the wall
The Supreme Court, which has a -3-5 Conservative majority, has a string of recent decisions for religious families and organizations, challenging state -run programs to exclude religious beneficiaries as a violation of the first amendment.
In 2017, the court said that the Missouri Trinity Lutheran Church Child Learning Center violated the right to practice in the Child Learning Center when it denied that his playground was refused to redefine the playground. Subsequently, in 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that Montana could not exclude religious schools from a program that provided tax credit to people who donated scholarships for private-school students. Very recently, in the Supreme Court in 2022 Maine could not limit A tuition assist program in non -sectorian schools.
In the case of the Supreme Court, Drammond argued that judges draw a clear line through these decisions: If the state parents provide education assistance to their election school, it cannot exclude religious private schools. However, when it comes to public schools, he said the states can provide a secular education.
Drummond said that the Supreme Court never stated that the section of the Constitution would “directly support religious education in public schools”, and added that creating and funding a religious public school would violate this provision of the first amendment.
“Religious education is an invaluable benefit for those who have chosen it,” Drummond writes. “But we didn’t need to create a religious public school of the Constitution. Now it has no basis for change.”
He warned that if the Supreme Court rules for St. Esidore, “state funds are” religious public charters schools like they do the traditional public schools “and directly vs. Firewalls will be damaged in the government funds flowing vs. personal preferences.
Drummond argued, “A verdict for applicants will remove the buffer that this court has long been in effect between religious instructions and public schools-where charter schools have sole or default public-school options,” Dramond argued that the matter was direct support.
An important question in the court fight is whether Oklahoma’s Charter Schools are public schools.
Drummond says they are, because the state charter schools have to obey anti -discriminatory laws; They are free, open to all students, made by state and financing and are subject to government control and supervision related to curriculum, tests and other problems. And the charter schools were public schools as the Attorney General said they were the government entities.
However, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter did not agree with the school board and St ICidore. Oklahoma’s GOP Governor to support them in the case, Kevin stitAnd State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters.
The board and the school say that St ICD is a privately conducted school that provides freely publicized education through an agreement with the state and protects the right to participate in the Charter School program.
“The state school has not designed. It has created or encouraged St. Esidore’s religious character. It has not appointed any member of the board of St ICDor. It did not instruct the school to offer the Catholic Tradition education. And it would not appoint or monitor the school teachers and administrators,” wrote a lawyer in St ICidor’s lawyer. “
Restrictions of state law, lawyers, said that the amount of unconstitutional religious discrimination is excluding Oklahoma from otherwise available public benefits and programs. And since the state charter school program is operated neutral, the institution does not prevent the public dollar flowing to religious schools.
“This is especially true when private choices indicate official dollars in religious schools,” they said.
The Garnet of Notre Dame Law School said that if a parent prefer to send their child to virtual school, the public money will only go to St ICidore.
“If the court thinks that Oklahoma has done a program that is eligible to participate in private entities, it is easy to say once they do it, they cannot discriminate on the basis of religion,” he said.
However, Professor Hill, like the Drummond, said the charter schools were public schools, and warned that there was always a line where the Supreme Court did not allow the direct flow of government funds to religious schools for religious orders. He said the case is part of a progress that started with the Supreme Court verdict on 28 and in many states traditional public schools are starving in wealth.
“Specifically, direct government funding of religious schools, especially should not be allowed,” he said, “he said. “Vouchers are a thing, but I think charter is a big violation of the divorce wall when winning the school.”
Only eight judges will hear the argument in this case that Justice Amy Kony Barrett has recovered himself. Although he did not provide any reason on one side of his move, it could be because the Religious Liberty Clinic of Notre Dame Law School represents St. Esidore.
Prior to being appointed to the Barrett Federal Bench, he taught in Notre Dame and was an adjunct professor in the Law School in 2021, his recent financial publication report. Barrett Notre Dame Law School, also a close friend with Dean Nichole Stel Garnet, who wrote a paper that the Supreme Court verdict in June 2021 should allow religious charter schools to allow religious charter schools or to violate the practice of free practice.
Due to Barrett’s reconsideration, the Supreme Court may disappear 4-4. The results will leave the Oklahoma Supreme Court verdict that the agreement established as a Catholic public charter school in St ICidor was a violation of the state and federal law.
A decision is expected at the end of June or early July.
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