WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Friday it will hear an Oklahoma case to decide whether the state must authorize a religious school as a public charter.
The new church-state case could yield a potentially momentous decision that could change public schools in much of the nation.
Los Angeles and other large cities have been leaders in establishing charter schools as an option for students.
They are privately-run public schools, but until now, the law has required that they may not be sectarian or affiliated with a church.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority may see this as discrimination against religion.
The appeal granted review on Friday argued that a state violates the 1st Amendment’s protection for the free exercise of religion if it excludes religious schools from its public-funded charter schools.
The court is likely to hear arguments in late April in the case of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School vs. Drummond.
The case has had complicated history in Oklahoma. The Catholic Archidocese of Oklahoma City applied to establish St. Isidore as a religious virtual charter schools and won an initial approval.
But the state’s attorney general and the state supreme court said the state’s Constitution did not permit public funding for a religious school.
The new school’s advocates appealed to the U.S Supreme Court.
Since 2017, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has led the court in a serious of rulings holding that churches and church-run groups may be not excluded from public benefits simply because they are religious.
The justices opened the door for parents to send their children to religious schools in Montana and Maine.
Citing those rulings, religious-rights advocates say Oklahoma should allow a Catholic school to qualify as a state-funded charter.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett said she did not participate in the decision to hear the case. She did not explain why.
