Click here to view original article news.google.com
On October 18, the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board executed a contract with St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, creating the nation’s first religious charter school. The board approved St. Isidore’s application earlier this year. Enforcing Oklahoma’s ban on religious charter schools, it concluded, would violate the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. Two days after the charter was executed, Oklahoma’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, sued the board in the Oklahoma Supreme Court. This came as little surprise, as Drummond repeatedly had stated his intent to take legal action against the board’s approval of St. Isidore. Drummond’s particular concern with the approval of a Catholic charter school, however, would undoubtedly surprise many. In both the press release announcing his lawsuit and the brief itself , Drummond suggested that his suit would protect the religious liberty of Oklahomans by guaranteeing that taxpayer dollars would not fund religious schools—especially Islamic schools. In a press release, Drummond opined: “Today, Oklahomans are being compelled to fund Catholicism. . . . [T]omorrow we may be forced to fund radical Muslim teachings like Sharia law. In fact, Governor Stitt has already indicated that he would welcome a Muslim charter school funded by our tax […]