Divided Supreme Court Rejects Bid for Religious Charter School in Oklahoma

A divided Supreme Court rejected a plan on Thursday to allow Oklahoma to use government money to run the nation’s first religious charter school, which would teach a curriculum infused by Catholic doctrine.

The court split 4 to 4 over the Oklahoma plan, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself from the case, and the decision provided no reasoning.

That deadlock means that an earlier ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court will be allowed to stand. The state court blocked a proposal for the Oklahoma school, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which was to be operated by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, and aimed to incorporate Catholic teachings into every aspect of its activities.

Because there was no majority in the case, the court’s decision sets no nationwide precedent on the larger question of whether the First Amendment permits states to sponsor and finance religious charter schools, which are public schools with substantial autonomy.

The brief ruling in one of the most anticipated cases of the term came as a surprise, after oral arguments took place only a few weeks ago in April. At the argument, a majority of the justices had appeared open to allowing Oklahoma to use government money to run the nation’s first religious charter school.

The decision did not include a tally of how each justice voted. It stated only that the lower court ruling was “affirmed by an equally divided court.” It is also unclear why Justice Barrett, the junior member of the court’s conservative supermajority, recused herself, which meant that she did not participate in oral argument or deliberations.

While Justice Barrett did not provide an explanation for her recusal, it may be because she is close friends with Nicole Stelle Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School who was an early adviser for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, the school involved in the dispute.

The two had clerked together on the Supreme Court in the late 1990s, and they later became neighbors and colleagues in Indiana when both taught at Notre Dame. Justice Barrett is the godmother to one of Ms. Garnett’s children, and Ms. Garnett has described the pair’s lives as “completely intertwined.”

Ms. Garnett has declined to comment on Justice Barrett’s recusal, and the justice did not respond to a request to comment before the oral arguments.

Although justices sometimes provide reasons when they recuse themselves, they are not required to do so. That practice was codified in the fall of 2023, when the justices announced the court’s first ethics code.

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