First religious charter school in the US faces legal challenge

Nine state residents and the Oklahoma Parent Legislative Action Committee filed a lawsuit Monday to stop the nation’s first openly religious charter school from operating. 

Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board had voted 3-2 last month to approve the application of the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School.

The plaintiffs, represented by organizations including Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union, are arguing the board violated the Oklahoma Constitution, the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act and several of its own regulations when it approved St. Isidore. 

Among the reasons the lawsuit says the school is unlawful are policies that could deny students admissions for sexual orientation or a difference in beliefs. It says St. Isidore will provide a religious education “and indoctrinate its students in Catholic religious beliefs.”

“A school that claims to be simultaneously public and religious would be a sea change for American democracy. It’s hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families than the state establishing a public school that is run as a religious school,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

“We’re witnessing a full-on assault on church-state separation and public education – and religious public charter schools are the next frontier. America needs a national recommitment to church-state separation,” Laser added. 

The residents filed in the District Court of Oklahoma County to stop funding to St. Isidore and block the charter school board from doing business with the school.

The Hill has reached out to St. Isidore for comment.

“News of a suit from these organizations comes as no surprise since they have indicated early in this process their intentions to litigate. We remain confident that the Oklahoma court will ultimately agree with the US Supreme Court’s opinion in favor of religious liberty,” said Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma. 

Ryan Walters, state superintendent of public instruction for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, said in response to the lawsuit that “It is time to end atheism as the state sponsored religion.”

“Suing and targeting the Catholic Virtual Charter School is religious persecution because of one’s faith, which is the very reason that religious freedom is constitutionally protected,” Walters said in a statement.

“A warped perversion of history has created a modern day concept that all religious freedom is driven from the classrooms. I will always side for an individual’s right to choose religious freedom in education,” he added.

The lawsuit had been expected as the proposed school caused quite a stir when it was approved, even among other charter school advocates.

“This decision runs afoul of state law and the U.S. Constitution. All charter schools are public schools, and as such must be non-sectarian. Charter schools were conceived as, and have always been, innovative public schools that provide an alternative for families who want a public school option other than the one dictated by their ZIP code,” Nina Rees, president of the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools, said after the board voted.

St. Isidore went through a months-long process to get approved, with its application originally rejected by the charter school board. The school has already indicated it is ready to take a lawsuit all the way to the Supreme Court.

“We’re not surprised by the threat of a suit, but we will be preparing if they choose to file one,”  Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said back in June. “This is a question that ultimately needs to be answered by the courts, perhaps by the US Supreme Court.”

—Updated at 5:09 p.m.