A group of parents, clergy and education activists in Oklahoma have filed a lawsuit asking a state court to block the opening of the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which could become the nation’s first religious charter school.
The group claims that St. Isidore’s will discriminate if it becomes operational and that it violates the state constitution and state law, which requires that charter schools be “nonsectarian in [their] programs, admission policies, employment practices, and all other operations.
“When a religious public school is allowed to proceed in one state, it emboldens religious extremists in other states to try the same thing,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. St. Isidore’s backers expected it would invite litigation. They are eager to test the question of whether charter schools are bound by the same rules of public schools — and whether they are truly public schools at all.“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, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, alluding to several recent cases governing religion in public life.
They are not the only ones advancing the argument that charter schools don’t have to abide by the same rules as public schools. In 2019, a federal court ruled in favor of a trio of female students who sued Charter Day School in North Carolina over its requirement that girls wear skirts “to preserve chivalry and respect among young women and men.” Attorneys for Charter Day School unsuccessfully argued that the school was not bound by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
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