US Supreme Court mulls legality of milestone religious charter school

30/4/2025 18:13

The U.S. Supreme Court is set on Wednesday to hear arguments in a bid led by two Catholic dioceses to establish in Oklahoma the nation's first taxpayer-funded religious charter school in a major test of religious rights and the separation of church and state in American education.



Organizers of the proposed school and a state school board that backs it have appealed a lower court's ruling that blocked the establishment of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. That court found that the proposed religious charter school would violate the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment limits on government involvement in religion.



Charter schools in Oklahoma are considered public schools under state law and draw funding from the state government. The proposed charter school has divided officials in Republican-governed Oklahoma. It is being challenged by the state's Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond but Republican Governor Kevin Stitt has backed it, as has Republican President Donald Trump's administration.