Last week Oklahoma's Attorney General filed suit against the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board challenging its approval of the Catholic Archdiocese's application for a state-funded online religious charter school. (See prior related posting.) The ACLU and Americans United had previously filed suit in a state trial court challenging the Board's action. The Attorney General's action was filed directly with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. As reported by PBS News, the AG's action came after 3 members of the Board signed a contract this week for the school. In Drummond v. Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, (OK Sup. Ct., filed 10/20/2023), the Attorney General filed an Application to Assume Original Jurisdiction and Petition for Writ of Mandamus and Declaratory Judgment, as well as a Brief in Support (full text) of its motions. The brief reads in part:
Make no mistake, if the Catholic Church were permitted to have a public virtual charter school, a reckoning will follow in which this State will be faced with the unprecedented quandary of processing requests to directly fund all petitioning sectarian groups.... For example, this reckoning will require the State to permit extreme sects of the Muslim faith to establish a taxpayer funded public charter school teaching Sharia Law. Consequently, absent the intervention of this Court, the Board members’ shortsighted votes in violation of their oath of office and the law will pave the way for a proliferation of the direct public funding of religious schools whose tenets are diametrically opposed by most Oklahomans.
As to the merits, this case is simple: Oklahoma’s Constitution disallows sectarian control of its public schools and the support of sectarian practices—indirect or otherwise....
The brief also asserted that the Board's action violates the 1st Amendment's Establishment Clause. The Oklahoma Attorney General issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.
