Oklahoma
Parents, faith leaders and education group sue to stop U.S.’s first public religious school
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A group of parents, faith leaders and a public education nonprofit sued Monday to stop Oklahoma from establishing and funding what would be the nation’s first religious public charter school.
The lawsuit filed in Oklahoma County District Court seeks to stop taxpayer funds from going to the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The Statewide Virtual Charter School Board voted 3-2 last month to approve the application by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to establish the school, and the board and its members are among those listed as defendants.
The vote came despite a warning from Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general that such a school would violate both state law and the Oklahoma Constitution.
The Rev. Lori Walke, senior minister at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said she joined the lawsuit because she believes strongly in religious freedom.
“Creating a religious public charter school is not religious freedom,” Walke said. “Our churches already have the religious freedom to start our own schools if we choose to do so. And parents already have the freedom to send their children to those religious schools. But when we entangle religious schools to the government … we endanger religious freedom for all of us.”
The approval of a publicly funded religious school is the latest in a series of actions taken by conservative-led states that include efforts to teach the Bible in public schools, and to ban books and lessons about race, sexual orientation and gender identity, said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which is among several groups representing the plaintiffs in the case.
“We are witnessing a full-on assault of church-state separation and public education, and religious public charter schools are the next frontier,” Laser said.
Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt earlier this year signed a bill that would give parents in the state a tax incentive to send their children to private schools, including religious schools.
The Archdiocese of Oklahoma said in its application to run the charter school: “The Catholic school participates in the evangelizing mission of the Church and is the privileged environment in which Christian education is carried out.”
Rebecca Wilkinson, the executive director of the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board, said in an email to The Associated Press that the board hadn’t been formally notified of the lawsuit Monday afternoon and that the agency would not comment on pending litigation.
A legal challenge to the board’s application approval was expected, said Brett Farley, the executive director of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma.
“News of a suit from these organizations comes as no surprise since they have indicated early in this process their intentions to litigate,” Farley said in a text message to the AP. “We remain confident that the Oklahoma court will ultimately agree with the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in favor of religious liberty.”
Stitt, who previously praised the board’s decision as a “win for religious liberty and education freedom,” reiterated that position on Monday.
“To unlock more school options, I’m supportive of that,” Stitt said.
Wisconsin
Court that almost overturned Biden’s win flips to liberal control
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court flips to liberal control for the first time in 15 years Tuesday with the start of the term of a new justice who made abortion rights a focus of her winning campaign.
Janet Protasiewicz will mark the start of her term with a swearing-in ceremony in the state Capitol Rotunda, the type of pomp and circumstance typically reserved for governors. Protasiewicz’s win carries tremendous weight in Wisconsin, a battleground where the state Supreme Court has been the last word on some of the biggest political and policy battles of the past decade-plus.
The conservative-controlled court came within one vote of overturning President Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state in 2020, though Biden still would have had enough electoral votes to claim the presidency. More battles over voting rules and elections are expected leading up to 2024, along with challenges to the state’s abortion ban, Republican-drawn political boundary lines and a host of other hot-button political issues.
Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County judge, ran with backing and deep financial support from Democrats, abortion rights groups and other liberals in the officially nonpartisan race. She handily defeated her conservative opponent in April, raising expectations among liberals that the new court will soon do away with the state’s abortion ban, order new maps to be drawn and ensure a long line of Democratic success after 15 years of rulings that largely favored Republicans.
Even as liberals have high hopes that the new court will rule in their favor, there are no guarantees. Republicans were angered when a conservative candidate they backed in 2019 turned out to sometimes side with liberal justices.
Protasiewicz replaces retiring conservative Justice Pat Roggensack, who served 20 years, including six as chief justice.
While it may be a while before the court weighs in on some topics, a new lawsuit challenging the GOP-drawn legislative and congressional district maps is expected to be filed within weeks. And there is already a pending case challenging Wisconsin’s pre-Civil War era abortion ban, and a county judge ruled last month that it can proceed, while also calling into question whether the law actually bans abortions.
The rules for voting and elections are also expected to come before the court heading into the 2024 presidential election.
A national Democratic law firm filed a lawsuit last month seeking to undo a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling last year banning absentee ballot drop boxes.
The new liberal majority was making immediate changes. Randy Koschnick, who as director of state courts has managed the statewide court system for six years, said he was informed Monday that he would be fired Tuesday afternoon.
Koschnick, a former county judge who ran for the state Supreme Court in 2009 with support from conservatives but lost to a liberal incumbent, said he was told by liberal Justice Jill Karfosky that he was being fired because the court was “moving in a different direction.”
