Supreme Court Stops Establishment of Religious Charter School in Oklahoma

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the establishment of the nation’s first religious charter school in Oklahoma.

The court deadlocked with a 4-to-4 tie, leaving in place a previous state ruling that “barred the establishment of overtly religious charter schools funded by the taxpayers,” per NPR:

The 4-to-4 tie vote means only that the lower court decision—here the state court’s ruling—remains in place. That decision said that establishing religious public charter schools would violate both the state and federal constitutions, as well as the federal law that helped create public charter schools.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from participating in the case for unexplained reasons, but speculation is that she felt a conflict of interest in light of her close friend from the law school at the University of Notre Dame bringing the case on behalf of two Catholic archdioceses looking to establish the charter schools.

“The Oklahoma charter schools case was brought by two Catholic archdioceses in Oklahoma that wanted to create a Catholic public charter school that would be funded by the state, as are other charter schools,” noted NPR. “But unlike other charter schools, the Catholic charter schools were to be overtly religious, serving as ‘a genuine instrument of the church’ with a curriculum imbued by church doctrine.”

Since the court rarely publishes votes from deadlocked cases, it has been speculated that Chief Justice John Roberts joined with liberal Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Brown while Justice Kavanaugh joined with conservative colleagues Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch.

“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,” the Supreme Court wrote in an unsigned ruling.

The court ultimately not deciding the case may also stem from the number of emergency of appeals from the Trump administration in response to lower court rulings blocking his administration.