Federal court rules in favor of Oklahoma Jewish charter school amid public funding lawsuit

A Jewish charter school in Oklahoma scored a key victory this month in its federal lawsuit seeking access to the state’s publicly funded charter program.

The ruling from the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Oklahoma comes more than a year after a Catholic charter school lost a similar lawsuit seeking to be included in Oklahoma’s charter school funding.

In his decision, U.S. District Judge David Russell said the state may not “single out religious schools for exclusion” from public charter funding “solely because of their religious character.”

The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board may not deny funding to the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, Russell held, though the order only applies so long as the lawsuit continues through the federal court system.

The Oklahoma government requires charter schools to identify as “nonsectarian” and not be affiliated with religious groups. That rule was previously challenged by a Catholic institution, St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which sought funding from the charter school board and which sued the state in 2023 over being excluded from the state program.

That suit drew the backing of the U.S. bishops as well as numerous states who advocated expanded educational opportunities. Yet the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately declined to issue a ruling in the case after the court’s justices were split in the dispute, leaving the school without charter funding.

It’s unclear whether or not the Jewish charter school dispute will affect the status of the Catholic charter school. But in his ruling Russell said the denial of the school’s application on religious grounds constituted a “concrete” and “actual” injury.

A “long line of Supreme Court precedent” supports the school’s position that the denial of its public funding violates the U.S. Constitution, the judge said.

Daniel Chen, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the charter school, said in a press release that Oklahoma’s ban on religious charter funding was “destined to fail.”

“The Constitution doesn’t permit the state to welcome every kind of charter school except a religious one,” Chen said.

The state has 30 days to appeal to the federal Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, Becket said.