Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic Represents Educators in Their Appeal to the Supreme Court.
Today, Catholic educators in Oklahoma asked the Supreme Court to remedy an action by the state’s attorney general that has blocked their efforts to promote statewide educational opportunities. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School petitioned the Court to review a decision of the Oklahoma Supreme Court that has nullified its right to participate in Oklahoma’s charter-school program, solely because the school offers Oklahoma families a new learning opportunity rooted in faith.
In 2023, St. Isidore was approved to join the more than 30 privately operated charter schools who offer a diversity of educational opportunities for interested families across Oklahoma. Oklahoma’s charter school board welcomed St. Isidore and its plan to add an innovative, faith-based school to the growing variety of charter-school options in the state—options that range across educational perspectives, including schools focusing on classical education, STEM training, fine arts, language immersion, service to particular indigenous communities, and more. St. Isidore would add a new option for interested families: one that would, in the Catholic tradition, “educate the entire child: soul, heart, intellect, and body” to prepare students for a lifetime of opportunity and service to the common good. St. Isidore is especially eager to bring this opportunity to underserved families that lack robust school options, such as those in Oklahoma’s many rural areas or who have children with unmet learning needs like dyslexia.
“Our hope—and a mission of Catholic education—is to serve the whole community by building new learning opportunities so that every child can thrive in a school that suits her own needs,” said Michael Scaperlanda, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Chairman of the Board of St. Isidore. “Too many children in our state don’t have that chance. We want to help solve that problem by opening a school for children who find the available options unable to meet their needs and who lack the resources to consider other choices.”
“When we moved here six years ago, we searched for a Catholic school nearby. I was sad to learn the closest one was an hour and a half drive away,” said Christine Joy Stevens, a parent interested in sending her child to St. Isidore. “We drive 35 mins just to go to Mass every Sunday. This opportunity is such a blessing for our rural community, I hope that our child will have the opportunity to learn at St. Isidore.”
Despite an outpouring of interest in St. Isidore from Oklahoma families and support for the school from the state’s educational leaders, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed a lawsuit in 2023 to bar the school from opening. In Drummond’s view, Oklahoma may not partner with religious educators through its charter-school program, and he sounded alarm that Oklahoma might confront a “reckoning” of religious pluralism if the state were asked to support educators from other faiths as well.
In June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed with Drummond’s suggestion that state and federal law prohibited Oklahoma from partnering with St. Isidore because it is religious. Today, St. Isidore requested that the United States Supreme Court review the case, arguing that it denies federal constitutional protections for religious freedom.
A team of attorneys from Notre Dame Law School’s Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic, Dechert LLP, and Perri Dunn PLLC represents St. Isidore in the case.
“The Attorney General’s disregard for religious pluralism is offensive—and his outmoded views on the law are simply wrong,” said John Meiser, Director of the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic and Associate Clinical Professor of Law. “States—including Oklahoma—routinely partner with faith-based organizations like religious schools to serve the public. The Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that the government may not offer to support the good work of groups like these but then deny that opportunity to any and all organizations of faith. We hope the Court will correct the lower court’s blatant misreading of the First Amendment and open the doors to this vital opportunity for Oklahoma children.”
“I am proud to work together with Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Clinic to support St. Isidore’s mission to bring new educational resources to families across Oklahoma, regardless of their income or background,” said Michael McGinley of Dechert LLP, who is counsel of record in the case. “We are hopeful that the Court will vindicate St. Isidore’s fundamental right to serve its community.”
At the heart of the case is a debate about whether private educators who design and operate charter schools in Oklahoma lose their constitutional rights and become arms of the state government by entering into state contracts. Former Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor previously advised Oklahoma regulators that they do not—and that it would be unconstitutional to eradicate privately operated religious charter schools. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has agreed. Drummond, O’Connor’s successor, however, has taken the opposite view, insisting that privately operated charter schools are governmental entities that must be secular.
“St. Isidore, like the more than two dozen other charter schools in Oklahoma, is a private entity, not a public one,” said Nicole Stelle Garnett, John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law at Notre Dame. “And when the state chooses to create a public program that enlists private entities to advance the common good, it cannot exclude some private entities from participation simply because they are religious. Oklahoma has chosen to give parents the option of attending privately operated charter schools in order to enhance the diversity and quality of the educational options available to children in the state. Only one kind of diversity is off the table—religion. The Supreme Court has made clear that this is constitutionally impermissible.”
In addition to St. Isidore, Oklahoma’s Statewide Charter School Board also filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to reverse the decision below. The Court is expected to decide whether to review the case sometime in 2025.
About the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic
The Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic is a teaching law practice that educates, forms and prepares Notre Dame law students to become the rising generation of religious liberty leaders by training students in the practice of the law as they defend religious freedom for all people.
Under the guidance of law school faculty and staff, students work on a broad variety of legal matters to promote religious freedom on behalf of individuals and organizations of all beliefs—both domestically and abroad. The clinic represents clients from all faith traditions to promote not only the freedom for people to hold religious beliefs but also their fundamental right to express those beliefs and to live according to them. Learn more about the work of the Clinic here.