Suit was filed yesterday in an Oklahoma state trial court challenging the decision of the state's Virtual Charter School Board to approve a Catholic-sponsored charter school that will be funded by the state. The 70-page complaint (full text) in OKPLAC, Inc. v. Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, (OK Dist. Ct., filed 7/31/2023) alleges that the school's application indicated that the school's operation would violate numerous provisions of the Oklahoma Constitution, the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, and regulations of the Virtual Charter School Board. The complaint alleges in part:
St. Isidore submitted notarized statements that it would comply with antidiscrimination and other legal requirements only “to the extent required by law, including . . . religious exemptions . . . with priority given to the Catholic Church’s understanding of itself and its rights and obligations pursuant to the Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”...
Because St. Isidore’s program requires students to submit to instruction in particular religious tenets, it is not actually open to children of all faiths and is instead discriminatory based on religion....
St. Isidore also will discriminate among prospective or enrolled students based on sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy outside of marriage, and sexual activity outside of marriage....
The Charter Schools Act requires charter schools to be “nonsectarian in [their] programs . . . and all other operations.”...
ACLU issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.
