Tied Supreme Court blocks church charter school

Rev. Shannon Fleck and Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush oppose Oklahoma religious charter school before Supreme Court building

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School was denied funding

(Image credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images)

What happened

A deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court Thursday effectively upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision to bar overtly religious public charter schools. The 4-4 decision, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself, denied St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School public funding while avoiding setting a precedent for future cases. Legal experts suggested Chief Justice John Roberts likely sided with the court's three liberal justices in the terse, unsigned ruling.

Who said what

A ruling for St. Isidore, run by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa, would have "reshaped American education and blurred the line between church and state," allowing, "for the first time, direct and complete taxpayer funding to establish a faith-based charter school," The Washington Post said. The outcome "came as a surprise," The New York Times said, given the tenor of the oral arguments and the Roberts Court's embrace of "allowing religion a greater role in public life."

What next?

The court's one-sentence ruling was an "unsatisfying end to one of the term's most closely watched cases," The Associated Press said, but neither side in the case expected this to be the final word. "There will be another case just like this one and Justice Barrett will break the tie," Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt (R) said on social media. "This is far from a settled issue."

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.