OK Charter School Board v. Drummond | 04/30/25 | Docket #: 24-394
24-394 OK CHARTER SCHOOL BOARD V. DRUMMOND
DECISION BELOW: 558 P.3d 1
CONSOLIDATED WITH
24-396
FOR ONE HOUR ORAL ARGUMENT.
JUSTICE
BARRETT TOOK NO PART.
EXPEDITED BRIEFING.
CERT. GRANTED 1/24/2025
QUESTION PRESENTED:
This Court has "repeatedly held that a State violates the Free Exercise Clause
when it excludes religious observers from otherwise available public benefits."
Carson
as next friend of O. C. v. Makin
, 596 U.S. 767, 778 (2022). Three times, the Court has
applied that principle to strike down "state efforts to withhold otherwise available public
benefits from religious organizations."
Id
. at 778-79 (citing
Trinity Lutheran Church of
Columbia, Inc. v. Comer
, 582 U.S. 449 (2017);
Espinoza v. Mont. Dep't of Revenue
,
591 U.S. 464 (2020)).
Contrary to those precedents, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that a state can
exclude privately owned and operated religious charter schools from its charter-school
program by enforcing state-law bans on "sectarian" and religiously affiliated charter
schools. The court also held that a charter school engages in state action for
constitutional purposes when it contracts with the state to provide publicly funded
education. These rulings implicate an entrenched circuit split and present two questions
for review:
1. Whether the academic and pedagogical choices of a privately owned and run
school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state to offer a free
educational option for interested students.
2. Whether a state violates the Free Exercise Clause by excluding privately run
religious schools from the state's charter-school program solely because the schools are
religious, or whether a state can justify such an exclusion by invoking anti-establishment
interests that go further than the Establishment Clause requires.
LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 121,694
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