OK Charter School Board v. Drummond
The Supreme Court affirmed — without explanation — an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling that blocked a Catholic virtual school from operating as a publicly funded state charter school, because the eight participating justices split evenly 4-to-4.
The tie means the Oklahoma ruling stands but sets no national precedent; the broader constitutional question of whether states can fund religious charter schools remains unresolved at the Supreme Court level.
“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.”
The Court's entire ruling — four justices on each side, no majority, no legal reasoning.
How it got here: Oklahoma's Supreme Court ruled against the Catholic charter school; the school and the state charter board separately asked the Supreme Court to hear the case, and the Court consolidated and agreed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Oklahoma's charter school board approved St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School — sponsored by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and Diocese of Tulsa — as the first publicly funded religious charter school in the country. Oklahoma's Attorney General challenged the approval, arguing that funding a religious school through the state charter system violated constitutional rules requiring separation of church and state. The Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with the Attorney General and voided the approval.
The question before the Court
Can Oklahoma approve a Catholic virtual school as a publicly funded state charter school, or does that cross the constitutional line separating church and state?
The Court's answer
The Court affirmed the Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling, but only because the eight participating justices split 4-to-4. Justice Barrett did not take part. A tied Court has no majority and issues no legal reasoning; it can only leave the lower court's judgment standing.
Because the affirmance is the product of an equally divided Court, it carries no precedential force anywhere outside this specific case. The constitutional question — whether a state can fund a religious school through its charter school program — has not been answered by the Supreme Court and will have to await a future case.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Other states considering religious charter school programs have no definitive Supreme Court guidance — the tie leaves the national legal landscape uncertain. St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School cannot operate as an Oklahoma public charter school. Families, school boards, and legislatures pushing similar proposals in other states must wait for a future case to get a Supreme Court answer.
What changes now
The Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling blocking the Catholic charter school remains in effect. St. Isidore cannot operate as a state-funded public charter school under current Oklahoma law. Because the affirmance carries no precedential weight, similar disputes in other states will be decided by their own courts. The Supreme Court could take up a future case presenting the same constitutional question once a full nine-justice Court is available to resolve it.
What this does not decide
This ruling does not decide whether states may fund religious charter schools. An equally divided affirmance creates no national precedent whatsoever — it settles only this dispute between these parties. Every other state's religious charter school question remains fully open for future litigation.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- When the Supreme Court splits 4-to-4 — here because Justice Barrett took no part in the case — no majority exists to issue a ruling or explain any legal reasoning. The Court's only available action is to affirm the lower court's judgment.
- An affirmance by an equally divided Court is a strictly procedural outcome: it leaves the lower court's decision in place for the parties in this case but does not create binding precedent that any other court must follow.
- As a result, the Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling that publicly funding St. Isidore violated church-state limits stands in Oklahoma, but no Supreme Court majority has endorsed or rejected that reasoning — the underlying constitutional question is unresolved nationwide.