Charles J. Russo, University of Dayton

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Oklahoma can open St. Isidore: an online Roman Catholic charter school named after the patron saint of the internet. If affirmed, the school would be the nation’s first faith-based charter – a sea change in education law, expanding the boundaries of government aid to faith-based schools.

On Jan. 24, 2025, the justices agreed to hear two consolidated cases: Oklahoma Charter School Board v. Drummond and St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond. Gentner Drummond, the state’s attorney general, filed suit in 2023 to block the school’s contract. In Oklahoma’s courts, Drummond argued that St. Isidore’s creation would violate state statutes, Oklahoma’s Constitution and the U.S. Constitution – and the Supreme Court of Oklahoma agreed with the attorney general.

The ruling involving St. Isidore “stands to be one of the most significant religious and education freedom decisions in our lifetime,” noted Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who backs the school. Opponents such as Drummond, another Republican, fear just the opposite: that a judgment in favor of St. Isidore would threaten religious liberty by allowing closer ties between the government and religious organizations.

Indeed, St. Isidore is a potential blockbuster. At stake is whether, or how far, the Supreme Court may continue to expand the boundaries of permissible government aid to faith-based institutions and their students – a trend I have often written about in my work on education law.

Testing the limits

In a trio of recent cases, the majority of justices held that states cannot deny institutions or individuals generally available aid based solely on their religions. The first, decided in 2017, dealt with a Lutheran church applying for grants to enhance playground protection in a preschool and child care facility in Missouri. The court reached similar conclusions about an educational tax-credit program in Montana, and providing tuition assistance to parents in districts lacking public secondary schools in Maine.

This time around, the justices will face two key questions. First, do the teachings of “a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state”? In other words, is a charter school a state actor?

Second, the justices will weigh how the First Amendment religion clauses apply to a faith-based charter school. According to the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The question is whether a state violates the free exercise clause by excluding schools from the charter program “solely because they are religious.” If so, is the exclusion justified by concerns about the government “establishing” religion?

Key arguments

The first issue – the “state actor” question – essentially asks whether a state-funded school teaching Catholicism would constitute the government promoting a religion, in violation of the First Amendment prohibition against doing so.

Drummond, Oklahoma’s attorney general, argues that St. Isidore “misuses the concept of religious liberty by employing it as a means to justify state-funded religion.” The state’s “charter schools bear all of the hallmarks of a public school,” such as being entirely state-funded, he wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court. Thus, as a government actor, St. Isidore may not promote religion or one religion over another.

This “state actor” argument may be difficult for St. Isidore’s proponents to rebut. Yet, supporters of St. Isidore have an ace in the hole: that trio of recent Supreme Court opinions expanding the boundaries of aid to faith-based schools and their students.

In the first of the trilogy – the 2017 playground case from Missouri – Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that excluding the Christian child care center “from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”

Roberts authored the opinions in all three of those cases, which reflect the dominant view of the court in recent years: the accommodationist wing. Accommodationists tend to take the position that the First Amendment promotes cooperation between religion and government, so long as the government does not favor a particular religion.

However, the justices’ support for faith-based charter schools may not prove as strong. One reason is that previous cases expanding permissible aid to religious organizations have used what is called the child-benefit test: The students or their parents, rather than the institutions themselves, like St. Isidore, are the primary beneficiaries of the government funds.

Another factor is that Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has joined the majority in previous decisions increasing aid to faith-based schools and their students, recused herself from participating in the decision over whether to hear the dispute over St. Isidore. She did not say why, and it remains to be seen whether she will take part in its resolution.

In the earlier cases, the five accommodationist justices – led by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, along with Roberts, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – supported increased aid. The remaining three justices – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – are less likely to support St. Isidore’s position. Thus, St. Isidore’s supporters may have little wiggle room.

What’s next?

St. Isidore is a potential game changer, because it may expand the limits of aid to faith-based schools and their students more than ever before.

If the court does uphold the creation of St. Isidore, the full implications remain to be seen. This much appears clear: Other states may follow suit, further blurring the line between church and state.

A decision in the school’s favor could have other consequences, as well. One issue Oklahoma’s courts considered was whether St. Isidore had to admit and serve students with disabilities. By state law, charter schools are required to, but critics argued that St. Isidore failed to demonstrate that it would.

Nonpublic schools, on the other hand, have no legal duty to admit particular students, including those with disabilities. When they do attend nonpublic schools, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and its regulations require local public school boards to fund some services. But that amount is limited, with the upshot that faith-based schools often are not equipped to serve students with disabilities.

If the court were to uphold the creation of St. Isidore, I believe the ruling could provide the impetus for Congress and the federal Department of Education to modify these laws to increase funding for children with disabilities at faith-based schools.

As I learned in law school, “the Supreme Court does not take cases to affirm them.” That lesson, combined with the court’s three most recent cases on religion and schools, suggests more change may be in the offing when the justices issue their decision – likely in late June.

Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Wayne N White Jr, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Private citizens and companies may one day begin to permanently settle outer space and celestial bodies. But if we don’t enact governing laws in the meantime, space settlers may face legal chaos.

Many wars on Earth start over territorial disputes. In order to avoid such disputes in outer space, nations should consider enacting national laws that specify the extent of each settler’s authority in outer space and provide a process to resolve conflicts.

I have been researching and writing about space law for over 40 years. Through my work, I’ve studied ways to avoid war and resolve disputes in space.

Property in space

Space is an international area, and companies and individuals are free to land their space objects – including satellites, human-crewed and robotic spacecraft and human-inhabited facilities – on celestial bodies and conduct operations anywhere they please. This includes both outer space and celestial bodies such as the Moon.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits territorial claims in outer space and on celestial bodies in order to avoid disputes. But without national laws governing space settlers, a nation might attempt to protect its citizens’ and companies’ interests by withdrawing from the treaty. They could then claim the territory where its citizens have placed their space objects.

Nations enforce territorial claims through military force, which would likely cost money and lives. An alternative to territorial claims, which I’ve been investigating and have come to prefer, would be to enact real property rights that are consistent with the Outer Space Treaty.

Territorial claims can be asserted only by national governments, while property rights apply to private citizens, companies and national governments that own property. A property rights law could specify how much authority settlers have and protect their investments in outer space and on celestial bodies.

The Outer Space Treaty

In 1967, the Outer Space Treaty went into effect. As of January 2025, 115 countries are party to this treaty, including the United States and most nations that have a space program.

The Outer Space Treaty outlines principles for the peaceful exploration and use of outer space and celestial bodies. However, the treaty does not specify how it will apply to the citizens and companies of nations that are parties to the treaty.

For this reason, the Outer Space Treaty is largely not a self-executing treaty. This means U.S. courts cannot apply the terms of the treaty to individual citizens and companies. For that to happen, the United States would need to enact national legislation that explains how the terms of the treaty apply to nongovernmental entities.

One article of the Outer Space Treaty says that participating countries should make sure that all of their citizens’ space activities comply with the treaty’s terms. Another article then gives these nations the authority to enact laws governing their citizens’ and companies’ private space activities.

This is particularly relevant to the U.S., where commercial activity in space is rapidly increasing.

UN Charter

It is important to note that the Outer Space Treaty requires participating nations to comply with international law and the United Nations Charter.

In the U.N. Charter, there are two international law concepts that are relevant to property rights. One is a country’s right to defend itself, and the other is the noninterference principle.

The international law principle of noninterference gives nations the right to exclude others from their space objects and the areas where they have ongoing activity.

But how will nations apply this concept to their private citizens and companies? Do individual people and companies have the right to exclude others in order to prevent interference with their activities? What can they do if a foreign person interferes or causes damage?

The noninterference principle in the U.N. Charter governs relations between nations, not individuals. Consequently, U.S. courts likely wouldn’t enforce the noninterference principle in a case involving two private parties.

So, U.S. citizens and companies do not have the right to exclude others from their space objects and areas of ongoing activity unless the U.S. enacts legislation giving them that right.

US laws and regulations

The United States has recognized the need for more specific laws to govern private space activities. It has sought international support for this effort through the nonbinding Artemis Accords.

As of January 2025, 50 nations have signed the Artemis Accords.

The accords explain how important components of the Outer Space Treaty will apply to private space activities. One section of the accords allows for safety zones, where public and private personnel, equipment and operations are protected from harmful interference by other people. The rights to self-defense and noninterference from the U.N. Charter provide a legal basis for safety zones.

Aside from satellite and rocket-launch regulations, the United States has enacted only a few laws – including the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015 – to govern private activities in outer space and on celestial bodies.

As part of this act, any U.S. citizen collecting mineral resources in outer space or on celestial bodies has a right to own, transport, use and sell those resources. This act is an example of national legislation that clarifies how the Outer Space Treaty applies to U.S. citizens and companies.

Property rights

Enacting property rights for outer space would make it clear what rights and obligations property owners have and the extent of their authority over their property.

All nations on Earth have a form of property rights in their legal systems. Property rights typically include the rights to possess, control, develop, exclude, enjoy, sell, lease and mortgage properties. Enacting real property rights in space would create a marketplace for buying, selling, renting and mortgaging property.

Because the Outer Space Treaty prohibits territorial claims, space property rights would not necessarily be “land grabs.” Property rights would operate a little differently in space than on Earth.

Property rights in space would have to be based on the authority that the Outer Space Treaty gives to nations. This authority allows them to govern their citizens and their assets by enacting laws and enforcing them in their courts.

Space property rights would include safety zones around property to prevent interference. So, people would have to get the property owner’s permission before entering a safety zone.

If a U.S. property owner were to sell a space property to a foreign citizen or company, the space objects on the property would have to stay on the property or be replaced with the purchaser’s space objects. That would ensure that the owner’s country still has authority over the property.

Also, if someone transferred their space objects to a foreign citizen or company, the buyer would have to change their objects’ international registration, which would give the buyer’s nation authority over the space objects and the surrounding property.

Nations could likely avoid some territorial disputes if they enact real property laws in space that clearly describe how national authority over property changes when it is sold. Enacting property rights could reduce the legal risks for commercial space companies and support the permanent settlement of outer space and celestial bodies.

U.S. property rights law could also contain a reciprocity provision, which would encourage other nations to pass similar laws and allow participating countries to mutually recognize each other’s property rights.

With a reciprocity provision, property rights could support economic development as commercial companies around the world begin to look to outer space as the next big area of economic growth.

Wayne N White Jr, Adjunct Professor of Aviation and Space Law, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Leo Porter, University of California, San Diego and Daniel Zingaro, University of Toronto

What do you think there are more of: professional computer programmers or computer users who do a little programming?

It’s the second group. There are millions of so-called end-user programmers. They’re not going into a career as a professional programmer or computer scientist. They’re going into business, teaching, law, or any number of professions – and they just need a little programming to be more efficient. The days of programmers being confined to software development companies are long gone.

If you’ve written formulas in Excel, filtered your email based on rules, modded a game, written a script in Photoshop, used R to analyze some data, or automated a repetitive work process, you’re an end-user programmer.

As educators who teach programming, we want to help students in fields other than computer science achieve their goals. But learning how to program well enough to write finished programs can be hard to accomplish in a single course because there is so much to learn about the programming language itself. Artificial intelligence can help.

Lost in the weeds

Learning the syntax of a programming language – for example, where to place colons and where indentation is required – takes a lot of time for many students. Spending time at the level of syntax is a waste for students who simply want to use coding to help solve problems rather than learn the skill of programming.

As a result, we feel our existing classes haven’t served these students well. Indeed, many students end up barely able to write small functions – short, discrete pieces of code – let alone write a full program that can help make their lives better.

Tools built on large language models such as GitHub Copilot may allow us to change these outcomes. These tools have already changed how professionals program, and we believe we can use them to help future end-user programmers write software that is meaningful to them.

These AIs almost always write syntactically correct code and can often write small functions based on prompts in plain English. Because students can use these tools to handle some of the lower-level details of programming, it frees them to focus on bigger-picture questions that are at the heart of writing software programs. Numerous universities now offer programming courses that use Copilot.

At the University of California, San Diego, we’ve created an introductory programming course primarily for those who are not computer science students that incorporates Copilot. In this course, students learn how to program with Copilot as their AI assistant, following the curriculum from our book. In our course, students learn high-level skills such as decomposing large tasks into smaller tasks, testing code to ensure its correctness, and reading and fixing buggy code.

Freed to solve problems

In this course, we’ve been giving students large, open-ended projects and couldn’t be happier with what they have created.

For example, in a project where students had to find and analyze online datasets, we had a neuroscience major create a data visualization tool that illustrated how age and other factors affected stroke risk. Or, for example, in another project, students were able to integrate their personal art into a collage, after applying filters that they had created using the programming language Python. These projects were well beyond the scope of what we could ask students to do before the advent of large language model AIs.

Given the rhetoric about how AI is ruining education by writing papers for students and doing their homework, you might be surprised to hear educators like us talking about its benefits. AI, like any other tool people have created, can be helpful in some circumstances and unhelpful in others.

In our introductory programming course with a majority of students who are not computer science majors, we see firsthand how AI can empower students in specific ways – and promises to expand the ranks of end-user programmers.

Leo Porter, Teaching Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California, San Diego and Daniel Zingaro, Associate Professor of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, University of Toronto

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.