Attorney General Gentner Drummond, also a Republican, sued to stop the school. He called the 4-4 vote “a resounding victory for religious liberty” that also will ensure that “Oklahoma taxpayers will not be forced to fund radical Islamic schools, while protecting the religious rights of families to choose any school they wish for their children.”

A divided Supreme Court rejected a plan on Thursday to allow Oklahoma to use government money to run the nation’s first religious charter school, which would teach a curriculum infused by Catholic doctrine.

The Supreme Court on Thursday, in a 4-4 ruling, said Oklahoma cannot create the nation's first religious charter school funded directly with taxpayer dollars.