A Weigand at the Supreme Court

Mark Lipplemann

Written by Trey LaRue, Washburn 2L

In a case that captured national attention, the U.S. Supreme Court was recently asked to weigh in on whether Oklahoma could deny a contract to a nonprofit organization seeking to operate a Catholic virtual charter school—raising questions about the intersection of religious freedom and public education.

The dispute began when the nonprofit—St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School—applied to the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board for permission to run a virtual charter school. The proposed charter school, because of its virtual nature, would permit students from across Oklahoma to receive a private, religious education irrespective of where they lived. State law, however, required charter schools to be nonsectarian. Nevertheless, the board concluded that denying the nonprofit’s application on religious grounds would violate the Free Exercise Clause. The board thus approved the application.

Two lawsuits followed: one from a public-school advocacy group in state trial court, and another from the Oklahoma Attorney General, who petitioned the Oklahoma Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus to enforce the nonsectarian requirement and void the contract. A divided Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with the Attorney General, ruling that the proposed charter school would be a state actor, thus triggering the Establishment Clause, and denying the application on religious grounds didn’t actually violate the Free Exercise Clause. On the board’s petition, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari and agreed to hear the case.

Amid this legal drama was one of Weigand Trust’s own, Mark Lippelmann (Washburn, ’09). Mark and his firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, represented the board beginning in the Oklahoma state district court and continued representation when the case moved to Washington. Mark’s responsibilities in the case were twofold: providing research support for briefs and coordinating amici curiae briefs from a diverse array of the board’s supporters.

Mark described the experience as both professionally demanding and personally meaningful. The volume of research and collaboration required for litigation in the High Court, he said, exceeds that of other appeals he had worked on. On a personal level, however, Mark—who grew up in rural Kansas with limited access to private education opportunities—saw the case as a potential turning point for students with similar backgrounds. A favorable ruling, he believed, could open doors to tailored educational opportunities for communities that otherwise wouldn’t have such options.

Mark also credited the Weigand Trust for enabling his career in high-impact constitutional litigation, noting that the Trust’s financial support provided during law school allowed him to pursue work with a religious nonprofit without the burden of student loans. For those Weigands aspiring to pursue appellate litigation, Mark’s advice was simple: network. His own job at Alliance Defending Freedom, a firm that has had multiple Supreme Court cases in recent years, came through connections in the legal community that enabled him to access this niche area of the law.

Mark expressed both disappointment and hope with the resolution of the case. After several years of litigation and intense preparation, the Court, in a one-sentence opinion issued on May 22, 2025, held: “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.” Justice Barrett’s recusal from the case left the justices deadlocked, and left the federal legal issues open for decision in a future case. Despite this anticlimactic outcome, Mark expressed gratitude for the opportunity to contribute to a case with far-reaching implications.