On Wednesday, the Supreme Court is slated to consider a case that one education journal said could yield “the most significant legal decision to affect schooling in decades.” The justices will decide whether the religious liberty clause of the First Amendment requires the state of Oklahoma to fund the nation’s first religious charter school.
The central problem is that the educational institution in question, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, is not designed to promote liberal democratic values or e pluribus unum in a nation that desperately needs both. Instead, the school says its “ultimate goal” is “eternal salvation.” That is surely a valid objective for people who are members of the Roman Catholic Church. But it is not clear why Americans who adhere to other religious traditions, or to no religion at all, should be compelled to support the school.
