Tennessee religious charter school fight could tee up next Supreme Court showdown
(The Hill | Dec. 14, 2025) A new religious charter school fight is brewing in Tennessee that has the potential to challenge a deadlock vote at the Supreme Court earlier this year that denied the creation of a similar institution in Oklahoma.
A lawsuit was recently filed in Tennessee to challenge a state law that bans religious charter schools after the state attorney general issued a legal opinion in favor of such institutions, which opponents argue flagrantly violate the separation of church and state …
… While the process in Tennessee has only just begun, legal observers say it could follow a similar path to the one in Oklahoma, where state officials were at odds over a virtual Catholic school that was set to see taxpayer funding.
“I think there are certainly activists on the right that are looking, that were disappointed that one of the conservative justices had to recuse herself, and are looking for another way for the court to say, ‘Hey, this is fine, right?’ So, the court doesn’t always take cases that are very similar back-to-back, but I could see this being possible,” said George Theoharis, a professor at the School of Education at Syracuse University.
The conservative members of the Supreme Court, apart from Chief Justice John Roberts, had been friendly to the idea of a religious charter school, while the liberal justices balked at the idea.
“They’re not asking for special treatment. They’re not asking for favoritism,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said during oral arguments. “They’re just saying, ‘Don’t treat us worse because we’re religious.’”
Charter schools present themselves as another public school option and receive public funding but are run independently and have more freedom in terms of enrollment and curriculum.
Opponents say a religious charter school could fundamentally change how the country approaches public education.
“I think it becomes a really slippery and dangerous slope for our public schools in our schooling system … this country was built on the idea of religious liberty, religious freedom, and that means that the government doesn’t take a position on religion, and publicly funding religious schools is a reversal of that,” said Theoharis …