A Supreme Court Case Could Pave the Way for Publicly Funded Jewish Day Schools
11th February 2025
After Oklahoma approved a request by the Catholic Church to open a charter school in 2023, lawsuits quickly followed. Courts at both the state and federal levels ruled against the church, finding that a publicly funded school promoting religion would be unconstitutional.
Now, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up the case, signaling that the justices are willing to consider overturning a longstanding legal precedent protecting the separation of church and state. If the court allows St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to become the first government-funded religious school in the country, the consequences for religious education — including for Jewish schools — could be far-reaching.
The school’s backers argue that charter schools should be allowed to teach religion because they are not technically government institutions. They also contend that as long as a state permits charter schools — and nearly all states do — excluding only religious ones violates the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.
In St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, the fate of the school will be decided by a court whose conservative supermajority has steadily expanded religion’s role in public life. The court previously ruled in favor of a public high school football coach who wanted to pray with students on the field, and has allowed government voucher funding for religious schools.