Days before she will graduate from Notre Dame Law School, Hadiah Mabry had a rare opportunity on Wednesday (April 30) to witness oral arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) for a high-profile religious liberty case she has worked on for the past two years.

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond challenges the exclusion of schools of all faiths from a program that supports privately operated charter schools in Oklahoma.

Mabry was among five current and former Law School students in attendance for the SCOTUS arguments after working on the case through Notre Dame’s Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic (RLC).

For the past two years, the students have helped a team of attorneys from the RLC and two outside law firms represent St. Isidore. On Wednesday, the students watched as Notre Dame alumnus Michael McGinley of Dechert LLP argued on behalf of the school.

“It was truly an honor to experience oral arguments at the Supreme Court,” Mabry said. “Very few lawyers get to see a case they worked on go to the Supreme Court, and I’m so grateful to the Religious Liberty Clinic for making this possible while we are still in law school.”

Attorneys argued that religious organizations in Oklahoma have the constitutional right to have access to a state program that allows other private groups to operate charter schools, and to deny St. Isidore’s charter constitutes unlawful religious discrimination.

“If the First Amendment stands for anything, it’s that the government can’t exclude people because of their beliefs,” said John Meiser, RLC director and second-chair counsel to St. Isidore at the Supreme Court. “We called upon the court to reinforce that bedrock principle.”

Meiser and clinic staff attorney Meredith Holland Kessler have led the RLC’s work in the case since its inception in October 2023. Kessler, Meiser and McGinley were joined at the Supreme Court by a number of other attorneys from St. Isidore’s legal team, including fellow Notre Dame alumnus Michael Perri with Perri Dunn PLLC.

In 2023, Catholic leaders in Oklahoma formed St. Isidore to bring a new school to families across the state, particularly in areas without access to Catholic education. St. Isidore was approved to join the more than 30 privately operated charter schools offering diverse learning options in the state. The school was set to open for the 2024-25 academic year until Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed suit to block it, stating it violated both the state and U.S. Constitutions.

After the Oklahoma Supreme Court sided with Drummond, the U.S. Supreme Court took up the case to review the constitutionality of that decision.

Meiser; Kessler; Nicole Stelle Garnett, the John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law; and more than a dozen Notre Dame Law School students have assisted the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa in their efforts to operate the school.

“We are deeply grateful to Notre Dame’s Religious Liberty Clinic, faculty and students for their service to our dioceses and to the Church. We could not have built this school without their support,” said Archbishop Paul S. Coakley and Bishop David A. Konderla of Oklahoma.

The students have worked in a variety of settings including helping to prepare for oral argument at the Supreme Court. Meiser said it’s hard to overstate how meaningful the experience has been for the students.

“They used their legal skills to help a new school grow from the ground up. They navigated complicated regulatory processes, worked on two separate litigations and now have had the exceedingly rare chance to help prepare for oral argument before the highest court in the country. Lawyers go their entire careers without opportunities like our students have gotten before they graduate.”

As a student in the RLC, Mabry learned about Oklahoma’s charter approval process and contract negotiation while conducting legal research for the project. Once litigation began, she helped draft briefs and legal memos, prepared counsel for oral argument, participated in client calls and traveled to Oklahoma for argument.

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work on this case, especially because we represent a school with a strong mission to serve the children of Oklahoma,” she said. “I’ve also learned innumerable practical skills that will help my future career. The case has solidified my interest in litigation, education law and school choice.”

Also in attendance at the Supreme Court was Jessica Smith, a second-year ND Law student. She joined the St. Isidore team last year when the school was preparing to file a petition for certiorari to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case. Along with the other students, she was involved in crafting both the cert petition and merits briefing.

“I’ve had a front-row seat and an insider’s look into how a case gets to the Supreme Court,” she said. “I’ve had the opportunity to watch how excellent attorneys approach everything from litigation strategy to oral argument and participate in that process.”

Before the school was formed, its leaders reached out to seek advice from Garnett due to her prominent scholarship addressing the free exercise rights of private charter school operators. Thereafter, they engaged the RLC for a variety of legal assistance as the project developed.

“It has been an amazing privilege working with the RLC in service to the Church, seeing the incredible formation the project provided to our law students and partnering with Notre Dame alumnus Michael McGinley, who provided singularly excellent advocacy for St. Isidore,” Garnett said. “It’s also incredibly gratifying to see my own academic work reflected in such an important religious liberty case.”

The RLC’s highest-profile case to date, Meiser said the St. Isidore matter represents “a classic Notre Dame story” that blends faculty, students, alumni and service to the Church.

“It exemplifies Dean Marcus Cole’s vision for a clinic that can complement our faculty’s leading religious liberty scholarship,” he said. “When St. Isidore’s leaders reached out to Nicole because of her scholarship, ND Law was launching the clinic. Their request for one professor’s expertise grew organically into a relationship with our new clinic, which could support their developing legal needs.”

Created to promote religious freedom for all people, the Lindsay and Matt Moroun Religious Liberty Clinic has led law students in representing individuals and organizations from an array of faith traditions. In addition to fighting discrimination against religious schools and families, it has defended the right to religious exercise in prison, secured asylum for individuals fleeing religious persecution, worked to preserve sacred lands from destruction and provided a variety of legal services to enable religious nonprofit organizations to carry out their ministries.

“It is hard to express how meaningful this has been,” Meiser said. “We have the opportunity to help a group of deeply good, faithful people bring new resources to kids who need them. We have given our students legal experiences that can’t be replaced and which I could never have imagined during my own time as a Notre Dame student. And we’ve done it all alongside, and because of, so many great people from Notre Dame.”

Mabry plans to clerk for Judge Joan Larsen on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit after graduating on May 18.

Smith will clerk for Judge Elizabeth Branch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit followed by Judge Don Willett on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

A decision on the St. Isidore case is expected by the end of June.