Cnn
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The Supreme Court uniformly Thursday in a high -level challenge on the First school with a religious charter of the nationLeaving in place a decision of the high level court of Oklahoma which noted that the Catholic School proposed unconstitutional.
The split 4-4 was made possible because the conservative judge Amy CONEY BARRETT challenged the case. Although she did not explain her decision, the former law professor at the University of Notre Dame had several links with lawyers representing the Catholic virtual school St. Isidore in Seville.
Religious groups had won a series of opinions from the conservative majority in recent years, which has devoted public funding to religious education and programming. Critics said that a victory for the school in this case may have widely widened the availability of taxpayers’ funds for religious schools or, alternately, prompted states to retreat or rethink school programs to Charter.
In accordance with its usual practice, the High Court made a brief unsigned prescription noting only that it had been divided equally. The Supreme Court was divided for the last time 4-4 in 2022 in a much more technical case dealing with the moment when locomotives must be inspected under federal law.
Uniformly divided decisions do not set preceding, so the religious groups involved in the case may bring another case.
In an unusual political turn, the Oklahoma republican prosecutor, Gentner Drummond, continued to block the creation of the school. In an article on social networks on Thursday, Drummond said that he was “proud to have fought this potential cancer in our state”. Drummond said that he would continue to “protect our Christian values and defend religious freedom”.
Jim Campbell, chief legal advisor of the Alliance, defending freedom, described the result “disappointing for educational freedom”.
The group of religious law had pleaded before the Supreme Court on behalf of the board of directors which approved the school in Charter.
“The United States Supreme Court has been clear that when the government creates programs and invites groups to participate, it cannot distinguish religious groups for exclusion, and we will continue our work to protect this vital freedom for parents and students,” said Campbell.
The court did not indicate how the judges voted – and the oral arguments are not always a specific predictor. But when the court heard the case at the end of April, Chief judge John RobertsIn particular, asked net questions on both parties and seemed to leave its options on an open decision.
Three of the conservatives of the Court seemed to support the creation of the school, while the three liberal judges of the court seemed to oppose it.
Charter schools – private but publicly financed – serve 3.8 million students in the United States, offering an alternative to traditional public schools which are intended to be more innovative and less linked by state regulations. The concept took off in the 1990s and, by the 2023 school year, there were about 8,000Charter schools operating nationally.
Oklahoma law, as in most states, judges that schools are public.
Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt and the former state prosecutor, John O’Connor, both Republicans, supported the creation of the school. But when Drummond took office in 2023, he withdrew the support of the school and finally continued to stop his approval.
Last year, the state high level court took the side of Drummond, judging that the school had violated the establishment clause of the first amendment.
However, the United States Supreme Court has decided on a series of calls in recent years through a different objective: the government does not have to open public programs to private entities, the majority judged. But if he chooses to do so, he cannot exclude religious entities to participate.
More recently, the court in 2022 prohibitedMaine of the exclusion of religious schoolsBased on a tuition aid program that allows parents to use good ones to send their children to public or private schools. In a 6-3 decision, the court judged that the exclusion of religious schools from the tuition programraped the first amendmentFree exercise clause.
“The fact that the court divided 4-4 into this case, with judge Barrett, who passed by judge Barrett, is not particularly surprising,” said Steve Vladeck, analyst of the Supreme Court CNN and professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. “The surprise is that the court agreed to take this case, judge Barrett had been challenged, first of all.
Gabe Roth, who heads a Supreme Court surveillance group called Fix The Court, praised Barrett’s decision to Recuse.
“Today’s impasse shows that the judges have in them to exercise ethical leadership, even if it leads to results that some could judge less than supreme,” said Roth.
“From an institutional and ethical perspective, it is much better than judge Barrett broke this affair because of his conflict to exercise an alleged” duty to sit “, which would have made a biased air hang up,” he said.
This story has been updated with additional details.