Split Ruling on Religious Charter School Challenges Perceptions of Catholic Unity on the Supreme Court

Justice Barrett’s recusal and a 4-4 split complicate assumptions about how faith influences judicial behavior

When the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 4-4 split decision on May 22, 2025, in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, it not only blocked what would have been the nation’s first religious charter school but also exposed the limits of a common assumption: that Catholic justices reliably vote in favor of religious institutions. Despite six of the nine justices being raised Catholic—a fact often cited in public discourse about the Court—the justices’ votes in this case revealed no unified religious bloc

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Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic and former Notre Dame Law School professor, recused herself due to her prior affiliation with the law school’s religious liberty clinic, which helped represent the Catholic school seeking charter status. Her absence left the Court with eight justices and ultimately led to a deadlock that upheld the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling without setting national precedent. The state court had held that approving St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School as a publicly funded charter would violate Oklahoma’s constitutional ban on state support for religious institutions.

The ruling preserves a state-level restriction but doesn’t resolve the broader constitutional question of whether religious organizations can operate public charter schools. More notably, it challenges the notion that Catholicism among the justices guarantees ideological or legal alignment in cases involving religion and the state.

Catholic identity on the Court has long drawn attention from legal scholars and cultural commentators alike. In recent years, the Court has ruled in favor of religious groups in a number of high-profile cases. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), the Court struck down a provision barring public scholarship funds from going to religious schools. In Carson v. Makin (2022), the majority ruled that Maine could not exclude religious schools from a tuition assistance program.

Those rulings were seen by some as evidence that the Court’s Catholic justices formed a reliable majority in favor of expanding religious access to public funding. But the Oklahoma case makes clear that such assumptions oversimplify a complex interplay of legal philosophy, institutional concerns, and case-specific factors.

The difference in Drummond was the nature of the school’s proposed role. St. Isidore sought to be a public charter school—part of the state’s official public education system—rather than a private school receiving vouchers or scholarships. This raised deeper constitutional questions about whether public schools can be religious in character and whether that would constitute a state endorsement of religion.

Several justices, including some who have previously supported religious liberty claims, appeared more cautious here. According to oral argument transcripts, Chief Justice John Roberts raised concerns about state entanglement with a religious curriculum. Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned whether excluding religious schools might create unequal treatment, while Justice Elena Kagan warned that allowing a religious charter could open the door to public funding for religious schools with doctrines or policies that depart sharply from public education norms.

These tensions illustrate that Catholicism alone is not a reliable predictor of judicial votes. The Catholic justices themselves represent a range of interpretive approaches. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the only justice raised Catholic who is widely seen as part of the Court’s liberal wing, has frequently dissented from rulings favoring religious claimants. Meanwhile, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have consistently supported a more expansive view of the Free Exercise Clause.

Legal scholars have long cautioned against reading judicial behavior through a purely religious lens. While personal religious beliefs may influence a justice\’s worldview, decisions typically reflect broader legal philosophies and the constitutional questions specific to each case.

Others have pointed out that Catholicism, as a religious tradition, does not dictate a single political or judicial viewpoint. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, for example, has advocated for both expanded religious liberty and strong social safety nets—positions that cut across conventional partisan lines. Within the faith itself, believers hold a wide range of views on law and politics.

The Court’s split in Drummond reinforces that judicial decision-making, even in cases involving religion, depends more on constitutional interpretation, institutional concerns, and the specific legal posture of each case than on the justices’ personal faith traditions. That reality may frustrate some observers seeking predictability but reflects the complex nature of constitutional adjudication.

The ruling leaves Oklahoma’s prohibition on public funding for religious charter schools in place. Similar legal efforts are underway in Texas and other states, and those cases may reach the Court in coming terms. With Justice Barrett likely to participate in future decisions, the next challenge may yield a clearer answer on the constitutionality of religious charter schools.