Attorney General Gentner Drummond withdrew the official Attorney General’s Opinion, issued by former AG John O’Connor, which could have led to the formation of a religious charter school. Drummond notes that O’Connor’s opinion “misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion.”
The opinion was requested by Statewide Virtual Charter School Board executive director Rebecca Wilkinson. She was seeking the Opinion in the wake of the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma applied to create a Catholic based charter school.
Drummond alerted Wilkinson that he was withdrawing the opinion.
“While many Oklahomans undoubtedly support charter schools sponsored by various Christian faiths, the precedent created by approval of the … application will compel approval of similar applications by all faiths,” Drummond wrote. “I doubt most Oklahomans would want their tax dollars to fund a religious school whose tenets are diametrically opposed to their own faith. Unfortunately, the approval of a charter school by one faith will compel the approval of charter schools by all faiths, even those most Oklahomans would consider reprehensible and unworthy of public funding.”
You can read the Attorney General’s letter to Ms. Wilkinson here.
