A group of Islamic schools and Muslim parents sued the Texas Comptroller’s office Wednesday, accusing state leaders of religious discrimination for blocking Islamic schools from Texas’ $1 billion private school voucher program.
The case marks the second lawsuit this month against the voucher program that GOP lawmakers pitched last year as a way to help families afford private education, including at religious schools.
The latest lawsuit challenges the comptroller’s decision to pause accepting or inviting Islamic schools to the program while state leaders review whether the schools have ties with the Council of American-Islamic Relations or other organizations Gov. Greg Abbott has labeled foreign terrorist organizations — a claim that the Muslim advocacy group disputes.
The lawsuit — filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas — calls the exclusion unlawful.
One key plaintiff is Bayaan Academy, an Islamic virtual school with a business location in Galveston County. It was previously the only Islamic school approved for state-funded vouchers, according to previous Chronicle reporting. However, the lawsuit states that after the Chronicle named Bayaan as the only Islamic school admitted to the program, it was immediately removed from the state’s website. The school never received an explanation why from the comptroller’s office.
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With the March 17 deadline fast approaching, attorneys argued that Muslim parents in Texas were faced with a difficult decision. They had to weigh whether to apply not knowing if their school would ever qualify for a voucher — or skip it because their school wasn’t listed and risk missing out on the program entirely.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs also argued the move was “pressuring families to choose between accessing a generally available public benefit and pursuing Islamic education for their children.”
They also said the action has already caused irreparable damage including damaging the schools’ reputations, “interfering with decision-making for the upcoming school year, and causing immediate loss of enrollment opportunities that cannot be adequately remedied through monetary damages.”
Layla Daoudi, a parent of a child at Houston Qu’ran Academy in Katy, is part of the coalition suing state officials in federal court over the exclusion of Islamic schools in Texas’ voucher program.
The group is asking for a temporary restraining order to bar the comptroller from enforcing the March 17 deadline. They’re also asking for a preliminary injunction on his office’s ability to administer the program until the legal action is resolved.
See here for information on the first lawsuit. I don’t have much to add to that, other than to note that as expected the voucher program overwhelmingly benefits people whose kids were never in public schools. This is my shocked face. Also, quite a few of the top-ranked private schools are not participating. Oh, and families with kids that have disabilities have mostly been screwed by the process. Other than that, things are going great. The Current has more.
Re: One key plaintiff is Bayaan Academy, an Islamic virtual school with a business location in Galveston County. It was previously the only Islamic school approved for state-funded vouchers, according to previous Chronicle reporting. However, the lawsuit states that after the Chronicle named Bayaan as the only Islamic school admitted to the program, it was immediately removed from the state’s website. The school never received an explanation why from the comptroller’s office.
Maybe it was removed from the State’s website because it was a virtual school that had no enrollees and didn’t actually engage in the business of educating student ?
The effort to get school vouchers passed in Texas was mainly funded by Christian Nationalist billionaires for the purpose of promoting their religion/cult. No surprise an Islamic school got excluded.