Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond on Friday sued to stop a state board from establishing and funding what could be the nation’s first religious public charter school after the board ignored Drummond’s warning that it could violate each the state and U.S. constitutions.
Drummond filed the lawsuit with the Oklahoma Supreme Court against the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board after three of the board’s members this week signed a contract for the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School, which is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City.
“Make no mistake, if the Catholic Church were permitted to have a public virtual charter school, a reckoning will follow through which this state shall be faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests to directly fund all petitioning sectarian groups,” the lawsuit states.
The school board voted 3-2 in June to approve the Catholic Archdiocese’s application to determine the web public charter school, which could be open to students across the state in kindergarten through grade 12. In its application, the Archdiocese said its vision is that the varsity “participates within the evangelizing mission of the Church and is the privileged environment through which Christian education is carried out.”
The approval of a publicly funded religious school is the most recent in a series of actions taken by conservative-led states that include efforts to show the Bible in public schools, and to ban books and lessons about race, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Oklahoma’s Constitution specifically prohibits using public money or property from getting used, directly or not directly, for the use or advantage of any church or system of faith. Nearly 60% of Oklahoma voters rejected a proposal in 2016 to remove that language from the Constitution.
A message left Friday with Rebecca Wilkinson, the chief director of the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, was not immediately returned, although Wilkinson has said previously she would not comment on pending litigation.
A bunch of Oklahoma parents, faith leaders and a public education nonprofit already filed a lawsuit in district court in July in search of to stop St. Isidore from operating as a charter school in Oklahoma. That case is pending.
Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who earlier this yr signed a bill that will give parents public funds to send their children to non-public schools, including religious schools, criticized Drummond’s lawsuit as a “political stunt.”
“AG Drummond seems to lack any firm grasp on the constitutional principle of spiritual freedom and masks his disdain for the Catholics’ pursuit by obsessing over non-existent schools that don’t neatly align along with his religious preference,” Stitt said in an announcement.
Drummond defeated Stitt’s hand-picked attorney general in last yr’s GOP primary and the 2 Republicans have clashed over Stitt’s hostile position toward many Native American tribes within the state.
The AG’s lawsuit also suggests that the board’s vote could put in danger greater than $1 billion in federal education dollars that Oklahoma receives that require the state to comply with federal laws that prohibit a publicly funded religious school.
“Not only is that this an irreparable violation of our individual religious liberty, nevertheless it is an unthinkable waste of our tax dollars,” Drummond said in an announcement.
The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a nonprofit organization that supports the general public charter school movement, released an announcement Friday in support of Drummond’s challenge.
