Ryan Walters again looking to intervene in legal fight over religious charter school

Ryan Walters plans to try again to aid the creation of what would be the nation's first public religious charter school.

The Oklahoma Board of Education approved state schools Superintendent Walters' request Wednesday to retain out-of-state lawyers for an attempt to reverse an Oklahoma Supreme Court denial of his initial request to intervene in the lawsuit filed by state Attorney General Gentner Drummond to stop formation of the school.

Attorneys from Plano, Texas-based First Liberty Institute, which bills itself as “the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans,” and Overland Park, Kan.-based Spencer Fane LLP will represent Walters and the state Board of Education’s interests in the case.

According to the state Board of Education’s contract with First Liberty Institute, its attorneys will be working pro bono on the case. So will Spencer Fane’s attorneys, an Oklahoma State Department of Education spokesman said.

Walters filed his initial motion to intervene in the case on Nov. 9, saying he was doing so to allow the state Education Department “to defend its interest in distributing state aid without religious discrimination, but also the fact that it is our agency that administers state aid for charter schools, not the Virtual Charter School Board.”

Five days later, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma denied Walters’ request. On Nov. 16, Bryan Cleveland, the general counsel for the state Education Department, filed a motion for the Supreme Court to reconsider that decision.

Ryan Walters calls his appeals a fight for religious liberty; Attorney General Gentner Drummond urged courts earlier not to let Walters intervene

Asked about the case Thursday, Walters called it “outrageous” that his request to intervene was denied.

“We’re going to challenge that,” he said. “Obviously, when you look at a public school, when you look at accreditation, when you look at how funding actually gets to the school, it goes through the state Board of Education. It goes through our board. Our agency has oversight as well. So we are obviously a litigant of the case.”

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Walters called Drummond’s lawsuit against the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board,  filed Oct. 20, “misguided.” Drummond filed his lawsuit after the board, by a 3-2 vote, approved the creation of what would be known as St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Charter School. Drummond has warned that approval of the Catholic charter school might eventually force Oklahoma to fund schools teaching Sharia law.

In court filings, Drummond urged the court to not allow Walters to intervene, saying at worst, Walters and the state Education Department “do not know their rule relative to school funding” and that at best, they “misrepresent their role.” Drummond also argued that “the power of the attorney general to represent the interests of the State in this Court and other courts is absolute under current Oklahoma law.”

Drummond’s office declined comment Thursday on the state Board of Education’s action. Walters, meanwhile, expressed optimism the Supreme Court would reverse its decision.

“We’re absolutely not going to stand by and watch religious liberty be trampled, so we’re going to continue to fight for individuals’ religious liberty,” Walters said. “We’re going to fight to get back in the case and we’re going to win.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Ryan Walters aiming to join legal fight over St. Isidore school