Small: U.S. Supreme Court should take Oklahoma case

U.S. Supreme Court should take Oklahoma case

By Jonathan Small

This year the Oklahoma Supreme Court declared the Catholic Church cannot sponsor the proposed St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, declaring the church would be a “state actor” using taxpayer funds for religious purposes.

The case could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Oklahomans should hope justices agree to take up this important case.

There are good policy reasons to hope St. Isidore ultimately prevails.

First, to improve educational outcomes in Oklahoma parents must have as many options as possible, including open transfer among public school districts, public charter schools, private school choice, and unfettered and unregulated homeschooling.

Second, allowing successful operators, whether public or private, to run charter schools is a good thing. Artificially limiting the number of potential charter-school sponsors ultimately reduces the likelihood of broader charter-school success.

Even more importantly, charter schools are choice-based programs. No one is forced to go to a charter school. Families must proactively send children to a charter. That negates the argument that families would be subjected to unwanted Catholic teachings at the proposed school.

This case could also impact providers in a wide range of areas. State government routinely contracts with religious entities in the hospital, substance-abuse, mental health and corrections realms – and uses private contractors to build roads and bridges. Many providers that receive Medicaid and Medicare payments are faith-based entities.

If the Catholic Church cannot have the contract to run a charter school, providers in all those areas could be driven out, reducing Oklahomans’ access to treatment and reducing taxpayer benefit.

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings have made this an issue where legal clarity is necessary.

In Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a Missouri policy barring churches from receiving state financial grants otherwise available to all to install playground surfaces made from recycled tires.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Montana’s practice of barring families from using a tax-credit scholarship for attendance at a private religious school.

The U.S. Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in Carson v. Makin, which dealt with a Maine program providing tuition assistance for parents in rural school districts that lacked a secondary school.

Taken together, those three decisions suggest that the state of Oklahoma cannot prohibit a religious entity from being a service provider. The only thing prohibited is for the state to mandate that children attend St. Isidore.

But until the U.S. Supreme Court makes that clear, lower courts will continue to send mixed messages.

The St. Isidore case is one where the Oklahoma Supreme Court got it wrong and effectively discriminated against Isidore backers because of religion. All Oklahomans would benefit if the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case and provided a definitive answer to these legal questions.

Jonathan Small serves as president of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.