THE Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Dr Sean Rowe, is backing the campaign against the state funding of religious charter schools in the United States, where the Supreme Court is due to hear a case on 30 April.
A Roman Catholic online school, St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, was initially given approval to be a state-funded charter school, in 2023, by the state of Oklahoma. A year later, however, that decision was overturned by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which ruled that the creation of St Isidore violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as well as the Constitution, under which public money or property must not be donated, appropriated, or used for the use of benefit of any sect, church, denomination, or priest, and endorsing any specific religion.
The school has yet to open. If it wins the case, it will be the country’s first publicly funded religious charter school.
Dr Rowe has joined Muslim, Jewish, and other Christian leaders in opposing state funding for the school. In a brief filed to the court, religious leaders say that state funding for the school would violate the Establishment Clause forbidding the US government from creating laws that lead to “an establishment of religion”.
“The Episcopal Church has consistently supported religious freedom for all in a variety of contexts,” the brief says.
Charter schools in the US are public (state) schools that operate independently of the traditional public system. They receive government funding, are free to select pupils, and are less closely regulated.
St Isidore’s is being run by the archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the diocese of Tulsa & Eastern Oklahoma. They argue that the ban on state funding is an “unconstitutional discrimination against educators and families of faith”. The school is being represented in court by a Christian organisation, the Alliance Defending Freedom.
The school plans to take children from kindergarten upwards, and says that non-RC students are welcome to attend the school, which will “seek to teach children to pursue truth, goodness and beauty through both faith and reason, and integrates this pursuit throughout the entire curriculum”.
The Interfaith alliance, however, opposing the school’s case, said that funding it would undermine the “neutrality of public education”.
“The founding principle of religious neutrality ensures that public institutions, including schools, remain inclusive spaces for people of all faiths, or none,” it said. “Allowing a religious charter school to receive public funds directly contradicts this principle, setting a dangerous precedent for further entanglement between government and religious institutions.”
Education has become another battleground under President Trump’s administration. Last month, the President signed an executive order to dismantle the US Education Department, which he accused of “breathtaking failures”. The order is being challenged in the courts.
