Dem
47
GOP
53
Yesterday, in a case brought by the two Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 on the issue of whether a private religious school can access taxpayer funds earmarked for public charter schools. When there's no majority, the lower court's ruling is automatically upheld. Only 8 justices weighed in because Amy Coney Barrett recused herself due to her close friendship with a legal adviser for the Catholic schools—Barrett is, in fact, godmother to the daughter of that adviser.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court had ruled 6-2 that a religious organization could not use public funds for their private Catholic school, and that doing so would violate the Establishment Clause of both the state and federal constitutions. The plaintiff had argued that a charter school is merely a private school by another name that uses public funds but is run by a private entity. Religious groups argued that if the funds are available to those private entities, it should be available to them, too. But the Oklahoma Supremes said no, charter schools have to abide by state laws, including employment laws and curriculum requirements. So, in order to utilize public money, the school must be secular.
This issue will surely come back before the Supreme Court. We don't know who voted which way but it's likely that those justices who are eager to blur the line between church and state, like Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, voted to overturn, while those justices who have read the First Amendment, like Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, voted to affirm. The consensus seems to be that Chief Justice John Roberts was the fourth to affirm, but unless it's leaked, we won't know, since the one-sentence order is unsigned.
Interestingly, the Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond and Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, though both Republicans, were on different sides of this issue. Drummond urged the court to deny public funds to the Catholic school, while the governor accused the AG of being hostile to religion. But before you get too excited about what seems to be a throwback conservative position, Drummond's reasons for opposing the funding are not exactly to shore up the wall separating church and state, but instead because he's aware of the law of unintended consequences. After the Supremes announced they had deadlocked, Drummond declared: "This ruling ensures that Oklahoma taxpayers will not be forced to fund radical Islamic schools, while protecting the religious rights of families to choose any school they wish for their children." He is right, of course, about the danger when the door opens to government-funded religion: Someone is going to use that public money to worship someone or something others find abhorrent.
And now, we must get to work on the curriculum for our future charter school targeted at members of the Church of the Fonz. (L)