A district court has ruled that Oklahoma officials cannot require a proposed Jewish charter school to be non-religious. Earlier this year, the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation sued various members of the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board over their rejecting the creation of a Jewish charter school. U.S.
District Judge David Russell of the Western District of Oklahoma issued an order on Thursday granting a preliminary injunction preventing the charter school board from implementing a rule requiring that state charter schools be nonsectarian. “Plaintiffs argue that Ben Gamla’s exclusion from the charter school program on the basis of its religious character violates their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” wrote Russell.
“A long line of Supreme Court precedent supports Plaintiff’s position.” “Because the nonsectarian provision in the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients solely because of their religious character, it violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.” Russell also rejected the argument that the charter has to be non-religious because it has been labeled public education, writing that “simply labeling something as ‘public’ does not necessarily mean that it is created, operated, or controlled by the government.” “Sooner or later, Oklahoma’s discriminatory bar on religious charter schools was destined to fail,” said Daniel Chen, senior counsel at Becket Law and attorney for Ben Gamla, in a statement.
“The Constitution doesn’t permit the state to welcome every kind of charter school except a religious one. Ben Gamla now gets what it should have had from the start: a fair shot to serve Oklahoma families.” Ben Gamla submitted an application last December to launch a Jewish charter school in Oklahoma. The foundation already oversees non-religious charter schools in Florida.