The U.S. Supreme Court has reached a deadlock in the case over whether or not religious charter schools in Oklahoma should be publicly funded.
TIE votes on Thursday will allow a lower court decision. Previously, the state-level Supreme Court in Oklahoma had banned the use of government funds to establish St. Isidor, a virtual Sebil Catholic school, citing constitutional restrictions on the role of government in religion.
But Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court split vote paves the way for other similar cases to advance. With no decisions from the country’s highest courts, there is no new precedent set to govern funding for charter schools, an independent institution that receives government funding.
However, it is relatively rare for Supreme Court cases to end with a tie-up vote. The 2020 Houston Act review estimated that out of more than 28,000 cases, only 183 relationships have been found in the Supreme Court since 1791.
Usually, court benches have a strange number of justice of nine to ensure that judges are not evenly divided.
However, Judge Amy Coney Barrett rejected herself from a hearing at St. Isidor’s school. She did not show her reason, but it is widely believed that Barrett left the case to avoid a potential conflict of interest.
Barrett has a close personal relationship with Nicole Garnett, an advisor and lawyer at St. Issidor School. As young legal experts in the late 1990s, they served together on the Supreme Court and eventually taught together at Notre Dame University in Indiana.
When US President Donald Trump nominated Barrett to the Supreme Court in 2020, Garnett wrote an opinion column in the newspaper USA Today, praising her friends as “notable” and describing their lives as “completely intertwined.”
A Supreme Court summary on Thursday, two-line announcements confirmed Barrett’s absence.
“The judgment has been confirmed by similarly divided courts.” “Judge Barrett did not participate in the consideration or decision of these cases.”
As a result, the court split between four and four, but no accurate breakdowns were provided. Secretary John Roberts is believed to have worked with three left-leaning justice on the bench to oppose the school’s use of government funds.
Now, the Supreme Court has a conservative supermajority, with six justice leaning to the right.
In the past, courts have shown acceptability for the expansion of US religious freedom, including when testing the establishment provisions of the US Constitution.
The clause prohibits the government from “establishing religion,” but what qualifies as a religion establishment remains unknown and is a source of ongoing legal debate.
The Oklahoma Incident dates back to 2023, when the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City submitted an application to open a taxpayer-funded charter school that shares Catholic teachings.
The school would have been the first of its kind, offering public religious education online to kindergarten to high school children. The plan was to open the following year.
The Virtual Charter School Board across Oklahoma first voted for the proposal in April, but only won a narrow 3-2 vote in June.
It promotes legal showdowns, and opponents call schools a clear violation of constitutionally mandated separation of churches and states. However, supporters argued that barriers to establishing Catholic charter schools limit their religious freedom.
The school’s plans even split the Oklahoma government. State Attorney General Gentner Drummond opposed the charter school as a form of “state-funded religion.” Governor Kevin Stitt supported the proposal. Both men are Republicans.
In Oklahoma, charter schools are considered part of the public school system, like the majority of other US states.
The distinction became crucial in 2024 when the lawsuit reached the state-level Oklahoma Supreme Court. The fact that St. Isidor feared unconstitutional, and that St. Isidor ultimately overthrew the court, not private, not private.
The judge ruled in a 6-2 decision to establish St. Isidor with state funds and become “state agent” just like any other state-sponsored charter school.
The judges stated, “The students require that they spend time on religious instruction and activities, and that they allow direct support for religious curriculum and activities within St. Isidor.
The school’s supporters appealed to the Supreme Court, leading to discussions being held in April. It was unclear how the High Court seemed to be tilting back then. Roberts was pushing questions against both sides.
However, conservatives on the Supreme Court bench appeared to support St. Isidor’s appeal. For example, Judge Brett Kavanaugh argued that withholding taxpayer funds from religious schools “seems to be class discrimination against religion.”
“What the religious schools are saying is, ‘Please don’t rule us out because of our religion,'” he said.
Meanwhile, left-leaning justice shows that a judgment in favour of St. Isidor paves the way for public schools to become religious institutions.
On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which upheld another lawsuit against the school, faced the Supreme Court impasse as a victory for the separation of church and state.
“The idea of religious public schools is a constitutional contradiction. The Supreme Court’s decision asserts that religious schools are not public schools, and public schools are not religious.”
However, their supporters vowed to continue fighting. Jim Campbell, who argued in favour of St. Isidor on behalf of the Oklahoma Charter School Board, noted that the court could “review the matter in the future” in view of deadlock.
“It’s better for parents and children in Oklahoma to be better with fewer educational options,” he said.
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