Taxpayer Funded Religious Charter School Vote
[guest post by Dana]
With Justice Amy Coney Barrett having recused herself from the case, the Supreme Court voted on taxpayer funded religious charter schools in Oklahoma:
The Supreme Court on Thursday, in a rare deadlocked 4-4 ruling, said Oklahoma cannot create the nation’s first religious charter school funded directly with taxpayer dollars.
. . .
“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,” the Supreme Court wrote in an unsigned ruling, so it is not known how each justice voted on the issue.
. . .
Because the Supreme Court divided evenly, its decision is not a binding precedent nationwide and sets the stage for the entire court to reconsider the issue in a future case, perhaps from another state.
The report notes that, as a result, the lower court rulings that said the arrangement would have violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment will remain in place.
P.S. About Oklahoma schools:
Oklahoma’s public school history teachers will soon be required to teach the disproved conspiracy theory that the Democratic Party stole the 2020 presidential election from President Donald Trump.
The Republican-led state’s new high school history curriculum says students must learn how to dissect the results of the 2020 election, including learning about alleged mail-in voter fraud, “an unforeseen record number of voters” and “security risks of mail-in balloting.”
Also, State Superintendent Ryan Walters says every Oklahoma public school classroom will receive Bibles. Since state legislators did not fund the initiative in the proposed 2026 state budget, Walters is using other avenues to raise money to purchase the Bibles. No word if these will be Trump Bibles.
Oklahoma doesn’t seem too concerned about that pesky First Amendment establishment clause. . .
—Dana
Hello.
Dana (0f9160) — 5/22/2025 @ 9:43 amLMAO. That’s awesome. You can’t really do more than point and laugh.
Time (cf931f) — 5/22/2025 @ 9:59 amThis is probably a good thing for charter schools and most voucher programs. Had this been decided differently, all those publicly-funded programs would have to be relitigated and some would have been struck down under state Blaine amendments.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 5/22/2025 @ 10:27 amThere was no decision, as the court split 4-4 with Justice Barrett recusing herself.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 5/22/2025 @ 10:32 amI think Barrett deserves credit for recusing herself on an issue she clearly feels is important. That choice takes some character.
Nate (5fc2a9) — 5/22/2025 @ 10:37 amI agree. While she did not explain her recusal, she does have connections to one of the parties of the case:
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 5/22/2025 @ 10:43 amSorry for the broken link.
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 5/22/2025 @ 10:43 amTBH I don’t think it matters to much what we Oklahomans teach. I am in a class 2A or 3A school district. The only thing they care about is the football and baseball teams.
Joe (584b3d) — 5/22/2025 @ 11:26 amGovernment should stop taxing and funding their indoctrination schools entirely. But since they do, why are religious schools discriminated against?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/22/2025 @ 11:35 amRemember the Golden Rule: He has the gold makes the rules.
Rip Murdock (521bb9) — 5/22/2025 @ 11:51 amIf you want to talk recusals, there’s this one involving Ta-Nehisi Coates, because four justices have (or recently had) book deals with Penguin, a party to the case.
Alito also recused, but he didn’t have a book deal with Penguin. Without a quorum of six, the case was sent back.
Paul Montagu (109343) — 5/22/2025 @ 1:20 pmWould it bother you if your taxes were used to support a Sharia school, Rob?
Dave (2e7645) — 5/22/2025 @ 1:20 pmNo it wasn’t; the appeals court decision became the final judgement.
Rip Murdock (521bb9) — 5/22/2025 @ 1:24 pmWould it bother you if your taxes were used to support a Sharia school, Rob?
Dave (2e7645) — 5/22/2025 @ 1:20 pm
Excellent question
norcal (cdf133) — 5/22/2025 @ 2:29 pmMy taxes already are, just leftist indoctrination instead of official sharia. They promote poison.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/22/2025 @ 2:46 pmThe Oklahoma AG brought the action against the charter school proposal and the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against the school, so it appears there are some in the state concerned about the First Amendment separation of church and state.
The linked article about the decision quoted national teachers union head Randi Weingarten as praising the result as upholding the foundations of democracy, but somehow didn’t mention that charter school teachers, and religious school teachers, generally aren’t unionized so of course the union would be against the Oklahoma religious charter school proposal. Yet it’s always those icky religious conservatives who lack principles, never their secular opponents.
RL formerly in Glendale (c21ff9) — 5/22/2025 @ 2:47 pmhttps://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/233384
And so on. But you will cite a leftist source claiming it’s not promoting Islam and around the meery-go-round we go.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/22/2025 @ 2:48 pmIf a school posts the Ten Commandments, are they encouraging Christianity or Judaism?
John Boddie (dcf99c) — 5/22/2025 @ 3:07 pmI attended christian fundo grade school and high school where we prayed and said the pledge of allegiance every day and look how I turned out!
asset (3a06e2) — 5/22/2025 @ 3:11 pmNJRob, did I miss something in the lesson in article you linked that crossed the line from education to indoctrination?
When I read it it looked like a standard exercise to learn about another religion.
Give world politics I think a basic understanding is of Islam is a reasonable educational goal.
Can you point out what you object to?
Time123 (0b86f6) — 5/22/2025 @ 4:06 pmObject to? It exists. Show me the equivalent class time devoted to Protestant Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, etc.
The government has the power to choose what religions they are promoting and which they only show in a negative light. Vouchers take that power away.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/22/2025 @ 4:32 pmSo you just object to students learning about foreign religions in general?
Time123 (0b86f6) — 5/22/2025 @ 4:38 pmI mean, nothing in there looked like they were promoting anything. And I can remember learning quite a bit about the reformation and Christianity in history classes. I mean my going in assumption would be that most kids learn the equivalent about Christianity outside of school. I agree that it would be good to include Judaism, as well as eastern religion, like Buddhism and Confucianism.
Time123 (0b86f6) — 5/22/2025 @ 4:40 pmRob’s link to Israel National News raises more questions than anything.
–For one, there’s “Sorry, that tweet doesn’t exist!” where a tweet used to be, so who knows what the deleted tweet said.
–The article is eight years old, yet where are these “Access Islam” programs in schools that have reached millions of kids? Why even link to a 2017 article?
–The article says this story was reported by Creeping Sharia, but there’s no link. I have no idea who they are.
–Who exactly is introducing this “Access Islam” program? There’s no mention of a group or organization. There is a Politifact fact-check from 8 years ago, which basically shows no reach.
–How was this the outreach–presumably with the resources to reach millions of young minds–supposed to happen? It doesn’t say.
–What of this “Virginia school assignment”? There’s not a word about it in the article. The closest thing I could find was a single geography teacher in a single school in a single Virginia county, giving students an assignment to use calligraphy to write the Shahada, which caused enough blowback to shut down the entire school district for a day.
–The article has a photo of a dark-skinned gun-toting “imam”, in a primitive madrassa with branches for windows and tin for a roof, teaching dark-skinned kids using skateboard-shaped wood slates for writing boards. The photo caption says “Islamic education – coming to a town near you”. Interesting message.
–Most of the article is a cut-and-paste of the syllabus.
–Bottom line, the content of this “reporting” generally sucks and offers practically no information.
This “and so on” comment is quintessential Rob, using a sketchy source with even sketchier information to fearmonger and hyperbolize about scary Muslims spreading their scary religion to indoctrinate American schoolchildren. Seriously, what kind of nonsense is this?
Paul Montagu (dfc26f) — 5/22/2025 @ 4:57 pmDon’t get me wrong, though. To me, Islam is a third-rate religion and heretical to the Christian faith, with Muhamed being a phony prophet who demoted Jesus from Son of God to minor deity. Sharia law is inimical to American democracy and our Constitution, IMO. Militant Islamism is a cancer to the Islamic faith that is thankfully and significantly diminished since 9/11.
I’d rather not see this religion be evangelized in schools, and should be restricted to comparative religion classes. But this also means that Christian evangelism shouldn’t done in schools either. If there’s going to be Ten Commandments poster on a schoolhouse wall, then there shouldn’t be a restriction against the Five Pillars of Islam placed alongside.
Paul Montagu (dfc26f) — 5/22/2025 @ 5:07 pmWhen I typed the question, I told myself “He’ll say they already are”…
Dave (5c7e1a) — 5/22/2025 @ 5:16 pmPaul, you put a lot on energy into Rob’s link
Time123 (0b86f6) — 5/22/2025 @ 5:30 pmHe did exactly what ai said he would and unlike Dave, I put my prediction into writing.
NJRob (eb56c3) — 5/22/2025 @ 5:38 pmNot that much. I was trying to figure out what the hell it was about, and learned that it was contentless badly reported drivel, a perfect fearmongering vehicle for Rob. His response reflects how whacked his point of view is.
Paul Montagu (dfc26f) — 5/22/2025 @ 5:51 pmThere was no decision
To punt is a decision.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 5/22/2025 @ 6:26 pmBut allowing a private college to enroll foreign students is bad.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 5/22/2025 @ 6:27 pmI am 100% for free speech…for me and not for thee…
Colonel Klink (ret) (9dbb75) — 5/22/2025 @ 7:27 pm