(RNS) — Three Texas Islamic faculties and a neighborhood of parents are suing instruct Lawyer Well-liked Ken Paxton and Comptroller Kelly Hancock, marking the 2nd upright issue this month alleging that faculties for Muslim college students were excluded from the novel instruct voucher program.
The 2nd lawsuit, filed on Wednesday (March 11) within the U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of Texas, says instruct officers and the voucher program director, Mary Katherine Gigantic, were “unlawfully refusing to approve in any other case qualified Islamic faculties for participation” within the faculty funding program and that it constitutes non secular discrimination.
The Texas Training Freedom Accounts program, launched by the instruct’s Legislature in 2025, created a $1 billion fund for non-public college financial succor. A net based platform for parents to starting up making exercise of opened on Feb. 4 (open via March 17), but none of the instruct’s licensed non-public Islamic faculties were listed as eligible for compensation via the program.
Farhana Querishi, a plaintiff whose kids succor Houston Quran Academy, acknowledged in a news launch that the comptroller’s decision to exclude Islamic faculties from the program despatched a “troubling message” that the instruct’s Muslim kids and communities had fewer rights than different residents.
“No guardian must must resolve between gaining access to a public education program and elevating their child based fully on their faith,” she acknowledged.
The dispute over the program comes amid rising hostility from Republican elected officers in Texas toward the instruct’s Muslim residents and neighborhood leaders, which became some extent of curiosity within the instruct’s Republican primaries.
The Texas Training Freedom Accounts net command. (Screen snatch)
Final week, Mehdi Cherkaoui, a criminal professional and Muslim father whose kids’s college is excluded from TEFA, also filed a lawsuit in opposition to Paxton and Hancock alleging non secular discrimination.
RELATED: Muslim father sues over exclusion of Islamic faculties from Texas voucher program
Though Hancock hasn’t commented publicly on the Islamic faculties’ exclusion from the program, their absence and past feedback he made expressing intentions to exclude them “helps an inference that the College Plaintiffs were excluded ensuing from of their Islamic non secular identification,” in accordance to the plaintiffs.
“While Defendants’ silence is formally unexplained, the present posture suggests alignment with present rhetoric linking all Islamic organizations to ‘terrorism,’” the complaint reads.
In December, after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a principal Muslim civil rights neighborhood, a “foreign terrorist group” and a “transnational criminal group,” Hancock despatched a letter to Paxton, posted on X, inquiring in regards to the legality of aside from faculties with ties to “foreign terrorist organizations” and “transnational criminal organizations.” The comptroller raised concerns that a deepest college that had hosted a CAIR tournament could perhaps succor from the voucher program. He also expressed fear over the probably inclusion of faculties with ties to the communist Chinese language government.
The criminal professional overall answered that Hancock’s set aside of enterprise had “paunchy, distinctive statutory authority” to prohibit faculties from participation within the faculty voucher program. And both made feedback on social media about looking to rep sure that the program would no longer fund faculties with ties to Islamic terrorist organizations.
In response to a Washington Put up account published Wednesday in regards to the faculties’ exclusion, Abbott commented, “That’s elegant. We don’t need college preference funds going to radical Islamic indoctrination with historic connections to terrorism.”
Neither Paxton nor Hancock returned RNS’ requests for feedback.
The lawsuit argues the comptroller’s decision to bar such faculties from making exercise of violates the First Modification’s free exercise and establishment clauses and the 14th Modification’s equal protection and due direction of clauses. Plaintiffs are seeking a ruling halting the exclusion of the faculties sooner than the program’s within the cut rate of-off date next Tuesday.
RELATED: Texas governor calls CAIR a terrorist group, says he’ll put into effect penalties
Some parents whose kids are enrolled in Islamic faculties like entered the program by selecting different faculties, whereas others like refrained from registering, refusing to make a preference a college different than their kids’s, the complaints cloak. After the within the cut rate of-off date, the parents who failed to register received’t be realizing of in TEFA’s lottery, which determines who benefits from the funding.
“They’ve created a machine the set aside Muslim households cannot even make a selection their faculties within the software portal, whereas hundreds of non-Islamic non-public faculties dwell licensed and eligible,” the complaint reads.
The three college plaintiffs, Bayaan Academy, the Islamic Services and products Foundation and the Eagle Institute Excellence Academy, like no longer bought clarification from the comptroller’s set aside of enterprise referring to their exclusion, they acknowledged within the lawsuit.
The kids of plaintiffs Layla Daoudi, Muna Hamadah and Farhana Querishi are enrolled, respectively, at the Houston Quran Academy, the Islamic Services and products Foundation and the Eagle Institute Excellence Academy.
Bayaan Academy, a 1,200-student virtual college headquartered in Galveston County, became once at the starting set aside licensed for the program after filling out a Google create put out by the comptroller’s set aside of enterprise in December. However, it became once eliminated from the checklist of eligible faculties following a news story highlighting that it became once one in every of the few Islamic faculties integrated, in accordance to the swimsuit.
In his lawsuit filed on March 1, Cherkaoui, whose kids are enrolled at the Houston Quran Academy, also argued the comptroller’s decision violates the First Modification’s free exercise, establishment and equal protection clauses to boot to the 14th Modification’s due direction of clause. His lawsuit also seeks a momentary restraining repeat to discontinue non secular discrimination sooner than the March 17 within the cut rate of-off date.
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