Oklahoma will not be able to use government money to fund a Catholic charter school, the Supreme Court ruled after Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from the case.
In Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, the Supreme Court rejected the proposal for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to receive direct government funding in a 4-4 split ruling on Thursday. In instances where the justices are evenly split, the lower court ruling—in this case, the Oklahoma Supreme Court—stands.
“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,” the one-page ruling simply said. It did not note how each justice had voted.
The lower court ruled that plans to open the nation’s first-ever government-funded religious charter school were prohibited by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits the government from establishing a religion or favoring one faith over another.
It was not immediately clear why Justice Coney Barrett—whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2020—recused herself from the case, which meant she did not take part in oral arguments or the final ruling.
The New York Times speculated that Coney Barrett’s decision could have stemmed from her close relationship with Nicole Stelle Garnett, who was previously an adviser for the Oklahoma school.
Coney Barrett and Garnett worked together at the Supreme Court in the 1990s before becoming colleagues at Notre Dame Law School.
Coney Barrett has fallen out of the MAGA crowd in recent months after siding with her liberal counterparts in some high-profile cases.
In one of those decisions in March, she sided with the court’s liberal wing to block the White House’s effort to freeze almost $2 billion in foreign aid.
The decision Thursday prompted some MAGA supporters to label Coney Barrett a “DEI pick,” referring to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
MAGA influencer Mike Cernovich wrote: “She is evil, chosen solely because she checked identity politics boxes… Another DEI hire. It always ends badly.”
The proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School was set to be run by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa. It would have been the first school to teach Catholicism to students while receiving taxpayer funds.
The original proposal for the school was approved in June 2023; Oklahoma’s Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted to approve the school in a tight 3-2 ballot after a nearly three-hour meeting.
But the state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, sued over the decision in a bid to prevent the school from opening.
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