The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a First Amendment dispute over an Oklahoma board’s approval of what has been called the nation’s first religious public charter school, setting up a potentially landmark decision on the separation of church and state.
Oklahoma is the latest battleground in the ongoing legal efforts of religious entities to obtain access to taxpayer-funded programs. In a June decision, the Oklahoma Supreme Court found that a state board’s approval of a Catholic charter school with a self-proclaimed “evangelizing mission” was unlawful.