In recent years, the legal landscape surrounding government funding of religious schools has been shaped by a trilogy of Supreme Court cases. These decisions established that states cannot deny public benefits to religious schools when those benefits are granted to other private schools, as doing so would violate the Free Exercise Clause (FEC) and principles of nondiscrimination. The US Supreme Court recently faced a critical decision regarding the extension of this rule to public charter schools in Oklahoma. The justices deadlocked 4-4 after Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself, leaving the Oklahoma Supreme Court's ruling —invalidating the contract with St. Isidore of Seville, a Catholic institution seeking to establish a religious virtual charter school— in place. Although it is not public which justice cast the tie vote, it is speculated that Chief Justice Roberts, who authored the Free Exercise trilogy, may have considered that the Oklahoma case was not the optimal vehicle for extending this precedent to public charter schools.