Last week, the United States Supreme Court announced it would hear arguments in a case on the constitutionality of religious charter schools. That very topic was featured in a panel discussion at a conference last fall hosted by the Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University, the video of which can be viewed above.
The litigation over religious charter schools began in Oklahoma in 2022, when the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City applied to the state’s Charter School Board to open St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School. The application was initially approved by the board, but newly elected state Attorney General Gentner Drummond attempted to rescind the approval a year later, a dispute that eventually landed with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Last June, that body backed Drummond in a 6–2 decision, ruling that Oklahoma’s constitution does not allow the appropriation of public money for schools with an overtly religious mission of instruction.
Education Next’s Joshua Dunn noted the shaky constitutional ground on which the Oklahoma decision stood based on recent precedent in similar cases about the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment, and he presciently surmised that the matter would rise again before the federal high court. That it now has is less surprising than the haste with which the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School v. Drummond, and it could be an indication that the Roberts Court is leaning toward overturning the Oklahoma decision. As Thomas B. Fordham Institute president Michael Petrilli argues, a ruling that compels states to allow religious charter schools would have enormous implications on the charter sector and school choice generally.
The organizers of the Harvard conference, Emerging School Models: Maintaining the Momentum, recognized the timeliness of the controversy over religious charter schools last year and welcomed a trio of scholars for a panel discussion that wrestled with their constitutionality. Paul E. Peterson, Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and PEPG director, moderated a lively conversation with Martha Field of Harvard Law School, Mike Moreland of Villanova, and William Jeynes of California State University Long Beach. The session is available to view above or here on YouTube.
