Oklahoma Attorney General Withdraws Predecessors Opinion That State Funding Of Religious Schools Is Legal

The previous AG looked at what way the SCOTUS wind was blowing and said, “Yeah, a Catholic-run charter school would probably be ruled legal.” The guy who beat him in the election says not so fast. I covered it at Forbes.com.

Drummond argues that O’Connor opinion “misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion. If allowed to remain in force, I fear the opinion will be used as a basis for taxpayer-funded religious schools.”

Drummond warns of a “slippery slope.”

While many Oklahomans undoubtedly support charter schools sponsored by various Christian faiths, the precedent created by approval of [the Catholic charter school] application will compel approval of similar applications by all faiths, even those most Oklahomans would consider reprehensible and unworthy of public funding.

Drummond’s opinion, though sensible, is unlikely to be the last word. He writes “assuming a charter school is a state actor, it would clearly violate the First Amendment and Oklahoma Constitution” for such a school to be “Catholic in every way,” as one Catholic church official has promised St. Isidore’s would be.

But that assumption—that a charter school is a state actor—may be tried and rejected in this term of the Supreme Court, which is still considering whether to hear an appeal of Peltier v. Charter Day School, a case that is nominally about a charter school’s dress code, but which hinges on the question of whether that school is a state actor, a true public school, or not. If not, then the Oklahoma AG office may have to prepare yet another opinion.

You can read the whole piece (including the other O’Connor mess that Drummond cleaned up) right here.