Yet another seemingly clear-cut First Amendment violation. It’s like it’s a habit around here.
A Houston-area parent is suing state officials, accusing them of religious discrimination for barring Islamic schools from participating in Texas’ private school voucher program.
The plaintiff, Mehdi Cherkaoui, alleges the state has “systematically targeted Islamic schools for exclusion” from the $1 billion tuition support program, preventing Muslim families from applying and using the state money at a school of their choice.
His suit appears to be the first legal challenge to the voucher program that Republican lawmakers pitched last year as a way to help families afford private education, including at religious schools.
Hearst Newspapers reported in early February that no Islamic institutions had been approved for the program even as families began applying to the program. Three Islamic schools had previously been approved but were later removed from the state’s map of approved campuses.
The continued freeze on at least two dozen Islamic schools started in December, when acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, whose office oversees the program, sought legal approval to block what he says are foreign terrorism-linked schools from accessing the program.
Program leaders have confirmed an ongoing “due-diligence review” of some schools but have not provided details on how the review is being conducted or evidence for why specific schools have been blocked. Hancock confirmed at an event over the weekend that the review remains ongoing.
As the story notes, all this is happening in the wake of some aggressively anti-Mulsim rhetoric and activity from Republicans, so it’s hard to see this as anything but an extension of that. Comptroller Hancock is welcome to testify why it’s not under oath if he wishes. This seems obvious to me, but you know what can happen when this eventually and inevitably makes contact with the Fifth Circuit. So keep your expectations modest.
I note also that Mr. Cherkaoui is seeking to get voucher funds for his two children who are already enrolled in a Muslim private school. He is allowed to do that, as I am sure many parents of children now attending Christian and other fancy private schools. I just wanted to note that this was one of the many arguments people like me made against this whole wasteful scheme in the first place, that the biggest beneficiaries of it will be people who already had their kids in private schools and/or always intended to send them there. I can’t wait to see what that data looks like when we have it. That has nothing to do with the merit of this suit, just with the merit of this dumb law. The Trib has more.