Oklahoma City
Oklahoma
Governor Stitt, Over 50 Elected Officials, Scholars and Think Tanks File Briefs in Support of St. Isidore
Government and Politics
March 18, 2025
From: Oklahoma Governor J Kevin StittOklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, which is set to be heard before the United States Supreme Court, will decide if a religious charter school – in this case, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School – can be made available to all students with public funds under the First Amendment.
The following individuals and organizations submitted amicus briefs in support of religious and education freedom:
Oklahoma Governor J. Kevin Stitt
“The State of Oklahoma is steadfast in her support of religious liberty for all and an innovative educational system that expands choice for all. For over 30 years, Oklahoma Governors have supported parental school choice. The reason is simple: Oklahoma’s greatest asset isn’t our oil and gas – it’s not our football teams – it’s not the aerospace and defense industry. It’s our kids.”
Professor S. Ernie Walton, Associate Dean and Assistant Professor at Regent University School of Law
“In other words, the state acted on behalf of parents in educating their children, and only if and when the parents chose to send their children to public school could the state play a role in their education.”
National Religious Broadcasters
“This Court has firmly shut the door on the idea that discrimination against religious individuals or organizations may be justified by pointing to the Establishment Clause. That door should remain tightly closed.”
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
“It is hard to buy that the architects of Oklahoma’s constitution were driven by a desire to completely separate religion and schooling, as the view that religion had no place at all in schools had not yet taken hold.”
“This case is important to every parent who cares to assert their right to determine and choose to educate their children whether by homeschool, virtual school, 3 public, private or parochial school, including how they deem what they believe is right even from a religious or sectarian view.”
The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s gross misapplication of state-action doctrine contradicts decades of precedent and expands the doctrine beyond its breaking point. If not corrected, that analysis would also endanger many vital public services provided by religious charitable groups and undermine this Court’s recent free-exercise jurisprudence.
World Faith Foundation and NC Values Institute
“Charter schools expand educational choices and facilitate the exercise of constitutional rights without evading the State’s constitutional duties. Many parents are dissatisfied with traditional public schools and prefer to enroll their children in schools that align with their religious faith and values. But Oklahoma uses a nonsectarian mandate to exclude schools many would otherwise choose.”
Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah M. Harris on behalf of the United States
“After the recent change in Administration, the United States has concluded that charter schools do not perform functions exclusively reserved to the State.”
American Center for Law and Justice and Former Oklahoma State Rep. Jon Echols
A generally available public benefit program cannot exclude religious participants. There is no risk of establishment of religion from such a result, but instead, mutual toleration and respect reflects the best of our traditions.
Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
“Oklahoma has not created a zero sum situation in which it functionally picks winners and losers; instead, it has maximized opportunities for would-be educational providers, leaving parents to be the ultimate arbiters. St. Isidore is not taking away a “spot” from someone else. Any institution that meets neutral, non-religious criteria may apply to operate a charter school, ensuring that no single religious or secular entity dominates the educational system.”
The Oklahoma State Board of Education
“In holding that mere religious affiliation disqualifies a school from serving as a charter school, the decision below violates the rule well-established in this Court’s precedent that privately owned, rn, and operated institutions aren’t state actors subject to constitutional constraints.”
“Make no mistake: If the thousands of charter schools across the country are considered state actors under Section 1983, a civil-rights lawsuit will lie in wait at every turn, sanding off the edges of cultural and pedagogical difference until the schools are virtually indistinguishable from their public-school counterparts.”
Professor Charles L. Glenn, Professor Emeritus of Educational Leadership at Boston University
“The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board’s decision to grant St. Isidore’s application is in accord with our Nation’s long tradition of school funding, including Oklahoma’s own history of government-funded religious schools.”
“Upholding the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act with the included exclusion of religious organizations would set a dangerous precedent, signaling that religious organizations are not welcome in public projects. This would not only violate the First Amendment, but it would also deprive society of the valuable contributions that these organizations make.”
“Legally, the Attorney General’s disparaging comments about minority faiths betray the First Amendment’s mandate that government officials approach their official duties with “religious neutrality” as this Court articulated in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 584 U.S. 617 (2018)”
Christian Legal Society and The National Association of Evangelicals
“From the Founding, not only have religious schools coordinated with the government to provide the nation with an important social service, but religious institutions also have a rich tradition of providing a range of other critical social services. Religious providers of foster care, adoption, prisoner re-entry, court-mandated drug treatment programs, hospitals serving the poor, homeless shelters, and other social services work side by side with the government to accomplish important societal interests. Crucially, these religious organizations have done so while both maintaining their religious character and receiving government funding, all without becoming state actors.”
EdChoice, Americans for Prosperity, Atlantic Legal Foundation, and Yes. Every Kid. Foundation
“As national organizations dedicated to ensuring families every available educational option for their children, amici are interested in the outcome of this case. Expansion of the state action doctrine could define private schools that participate in choice programs to be state actors, restricting student access to innovative schools, including religious schools.”
Former Oklahoma Attorneys General John M. O’Connor and Scott Pruitt
“Because St. Isidore is not a state actor, Oklahoma must treat it on equal footing with its secular counterparts. At first, it did: the Charter School Board granted St Isidore’s application. But the current Attorney General quickly sought to rescind that approval solely because St. Isidore is a religious school. Such a penalty against religious exercise violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. Once a state decides to provide a public benefit—such as alternatives to traditional public schools—it cannot withhold that benefit only from religious entities.”
“In sum, school choice is a manifestation of the constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. It introduces necessary dynamism into an ossified system, expands educational opportunities, and, most critically, ensures that no child remains trapped in a failing school due to socioeconomic circumstances.”
Former Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating II and Professor William Jeynes
“The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s conclusion that a private charter school operator is necessarily a state actor is not only wrong, it’s troublingly broad.”
"The Oklahoma Supreme Court has effectively declared religious charter schools unconstitutional. That cannot be squared with the Free Exercise Clause, which forbids states from excluding “religious persons from the enjoyment of public benefits on the basis of their anticipated religious use of the benefits.” Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. 767, 789 (2022)."
“This case provides the Court with an opportunity to recognize the rich history of educational partnerships between private and public entities in the United States. This history shows that charter schools, although publicly funded, are not state actors.”
States of South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Texas, and Utah
“While the education of students is certainly a governmental objective, education is not an exclusively public function. This Court need not reach the question of whether a charter school is a state actor for every purpose. The key question here is whether a charter school is a state actor for purposes of the First Amendment.”
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America
“If the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s reasoning in this case stands, states will have new opportunities to circumvent this Court’s free exercise precedent by redefining religious entities as state actors. And if the religious institutions refuse to give up their religious exercise, then their licenses or contracts could be revoked—all because their religious practices were intolerable to the government.”
“When a state makes programs or benefits publicly available, it cannot withhold those benefits or discriminate among participants based on religion or religious affiliation.”
“Since 1947, when this Court first incorporated the Establishment Clause into the Fourteenth Amendment, it has claimed that the state must maintain neutrality between religion and nonreligion or between believers and unbelievers. This case provides an opportunity for the Court to move a step closer to achieving that ideal by siding with the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board (Charter School Board) against the Oklahoma Attorney General in giving St. Isidore, a Catholic charter school, equal treatment with “nonsectarian” charter schools.”
Great Hearts Academies and Texas Leadership Public Schools
“In holding that charter schools are state actors, the Oklahoma Supreme Court got the matter exactly backward: it is because charter schools are private organizations—and not creatures of the state—that states invite those organizations to contract with them to deliver educational services. The history and rise of charter schools, and the diversity of state regulation, confirm that the character and function of these private entities is antithetical to being slapped with the label “public” and tagged government actors.”
“This assessment of the lack of power by the States likewise precludes “entwinement” because there is no State government entity action being challenged, but rather an attempt to characterize routine independent private acts of a religious charter school to be misnomered as State action simply because of the infringing and overreaching effort of the Oklahoma State Attorney General to enforce its own historic anti–religious organic law.”