A bedrock of American exceptionalism has been the prohibition on using tax dollars to support religion. In America’s “melting pot,” public schools must be open to all without any religious preference or indoctrination.

In a 4-4 decision (with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself for an apparent conflict), the Supreme Court rejected an effort to demand tax dollars to create a Catholic public charter school. The planned public school in Oklahoma would have required attendance at Catholic Mass, indoctrinated students in Catholicism and apparently discriminated in hiring and admissions.

But when Barrett participates in a future case, without some reconsideration, it is highly likely that the current court will permit taxpayer-funded public schools controlled by a particular church. If so, every church will be able to demand equal access to taxpayer dollars.

This should concern all Americans.

The First Amendment prohibits government establishment of religion, but what exactly does that mean?

At a minimum, it should prevent the government from picking what is the “correct” religion. As the Supreme Court explained, the First Amendment prohibits the “State or Federal government” from giving “official support” to “the tenets of one or of all orthodoxies.”

But that is exactly what the teachers and administrators at the proposed St. Isidore’s would have done. These government employees, paid with tax dollars, would use government funds to endorse and advance Catholicism.

Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters has tried to normalize this government endorsement of religion. He argues misleadingly that........

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