A deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court effectively blocked the creation of the nation's first religious charter school in Oklahoma, leaving in place a state Supreme Court ruling that declared the school violated the constitutional separation of church and state.
The vote was 4-4, and the order did not specify which justice voted which way. Justice Amy Coney Barrett had recused herself from the case.
At issue in the case were two Catholic dioceses in Oklahoma that tried to establish a publicly funded Catholic school, St. Isidore of Seville, as a charter school.
That move challenged both the federal charter school law and similar state laws under which charter schools are public schools that are funded by the state, closely supervised by the state, and must be non-sectarian.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the creation of a religious charter would directly contradict the state and federal constitutional bans on state-sponsored religious indoctrination.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself from participating in the case. As a professor at the University of Notre Dame, she was involved with a legal clinic that advised St. Isidore.
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