The Supreme Court on Thursday, in a 4-4 ruling, said Oklahoma cannot create the nation's first religious charter school funded directly with taxpayer dollars.

Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general had argued that drastic consequences would follow if the justices sided with the school.

In a 4-to-4 decision, the court upheld a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court that blocked the school. An evenly divided Supreme Court rejected a plan on Thursday to allow Oklahoma to use government money to run the nation’s first religious charter school, which would teach a curriculum infused by Catholic doctrine.

The court split 4-4, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself from the proceedings, therefore affirming the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling, which had blocked the approval of a charter for St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School because of its religious affiliation. The high court did not elaborate on the reason for its decision.

On a more rational court, Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond would not have been close at all.

Last June, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against the proposed charter school, called St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, and the charter school board that approved it, determining that allowing a school that openly promotes religion to be publicly funded would violate both the Constitution and state law.

One of the GOP justices must have defected in a case about religious schools, but the Court didn’t reveal who it was.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court came to a 4-4 tie on a case brought by Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters to allow taxpayer dollars to subsidize a Catholic charter school. ABC News reported that the stalemate — in which Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Court's three Democratic-appointed justices — was made possible