Judge rules Texas must extend application deadline for school choice program

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(The Center Square) – A judge has ruled in favor of Muslim plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Texas Comptroller’s Office over Texas’ new school choice program. 

The deadline to apply to the program was Tuesday but the judge extended it to March 31.

The new program provides roughly $1 billion in Education Savings Accounts grants to roughly 100,000 students. More than 200,000 students had applied as of yesterday and more than 2,200 schools have been approved to participate, the comptroller’s office said. 

“Additional schools, vendors and education services continue to register on a rolling basis. Families will have until July 15 to confirm their school selections,” the comptroller’s office, which is administering the program, said.

Proponents of the program argue it was designed to support students from lower income families seeking to leave public schools for alternate education options. The majority of applicants, 80%, are existing private school students, The Center Square reported.

Notably absent among the approved private schools are Islamic schools. One Islamic private school was approved but later dropped. Muslims students attending Islamic schools were also prohibited from applying.

The reason stems from an attorney general legal opinion stating private schools with potential connections to foreign adversaries were prohibited from participating. It was issued in response to concerns the comptroller raised about “potential TEFA applicants accredited through a TEPSAC-approved agency, Cognia," which is based at an address that has "hosted publicly advertised events organized” by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). 

Last November, Gov. Greg Abbott designated CAIR as a foreign terrorist organization and transnational criminal organization. CAIR sued, rejecting the designation.

Five parents and three schools sued arguing the prohibition and process is illegal, The Center Square reported.

Shaimaa Zayan, operations manager at the Council on American Islamic Relations-Austin, Texas, told The Center Square, “What we are witnessing in Texas is religious persecution. Those families who chose private Islamic schools pay taxes like everyone else but were not evaluated based on objective criteria under the law Attorney General Ken Paxton himself advocated for. This exclusion didn’t apply the criteria mentioned in the law nor the spirit of the law that cried out for school choice.

“The comptroller’s role is to ensure fair distribution of the fund based on the objective criteria not to exclude schools of faith he dislikes and create grievances.”

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett granted the request for a temporary restraining order. He also ordered the comptroller’s office to send applications to schools that wanted to participate. 

Bennett said the application process did not appear to be “fair and equitable. … If you were to roll dice in a game of chance ... you would not come up with those numbers,” he said of no Islamic schools being admitted to the program. “The appearance of this reeks," he said, the Houston Chronicle reported. 

In response to the ruling, CAIR-Texas said it welcomed the “court’s decision to extend the application deadline and recognize the serious concerns raised about the exclusion of Islamic schools from Texas’ voucher program. All families, regardless of their faith, deserve equal access to educational opportunities supported by public programs."

A hearing is scheduled for April.