The Supreme Court’s 4-4 decision last Thursday to effectively end a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma is “very disappointing” and not the “outcome we were looking for,” Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt told Newsmax Wednesday.
“We believe in religious freedoms. We believe in putting parents in charge of their kids’ education. And I remind people all the time that you don’t have to send your kids to a religious charter school. It’s just another option that if you want your kids to have a faith-based education, that the government should not stand in the way and discriminate against that because it’s a public benefit,” Stitt said during an appearance on “National Report.”
“So, in other words, you can have a charter school for music or STEM or all these different subjects or different genres, but oh, if you’re faith-based, we’re going to discriminate against you and not allow you to set up a charter school. So that’s the premise of this. It was a tie, 4-4. So we know that we feel very optimistic that if [Justice] Amy Coney Barrett, they find another case to look at, it’s actually 5-4 to protect religious freedoms,” he added.
The Catholic Church in Oklahoma had wanted taxpayers to fund the online charter school “faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Opponents warned that allowing it would blur the separation between church and state, sap money from public schools, and possibly upend the rules governing charter schools in almost every state.
Only eight of the nine justices took part in the case. Barrett didn’t explain her absence, but she is good friends and used to teach with Notre Dame law professor Nicole Garnett, who has been an adviser to the school.
The issue, Stitt told Newsmax, “is far from settled.”
“There’ll be another case that comes back before the court. The fact that they grabbed this case to look at it, they want to settle this issue once and for all,” said Stitt.
“The best argument that I can explain to people, because people will tell you, ‘Oh, well, you can’t use public funds to a religious organization,’ well, let me tell you how you argue that very simply. In Oklahoma, for example, most all states have Medicaid, right?
“… And when you’re on Medicaid, you can go to a Catholic hospital, you can go to a Jewish doctor, you can go to a Muslim doctor,” Stitt continued. “Those are public dollars going to a religious institution or a religious company. So the fact that we don’t have public benefits going to Catholic hospitals or Jewish doctors or Christian physicians, it’s just absolutely absurd. … We’re trying to inject competition into the education system and put parents in charge. We are just so disappointed.”
Added Stitt, “One of the conservatives on the Supreme Court got this wrong and voted with the three liberals. We don’t even know who it is because it was a tie, and they didn’t issue any opinions.”
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