Federal Judge Blocks Oklahoma From Rejecting Jewish Charter School Over Religion

A federal judge in Oklahoma City has told the state it can't reject a charter school application just because the school is religious. The ruling doesn't open any doors yet.

U.S. District Judge David Russell, a Reagan appointee, issued a preliminary injunction Thursday, Sept. 24, in favor of the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation. The Florida-based group wants to run a virtual K-12 charter school in Oklahoma built around Jewish religious instruction. Court documents cited by K12 Dive describe the school's mission as teaching "Jewish religion, culture, values, rituals, texts, holidays, and practices" alongside standard academics.

The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board voted 8-0 on Feb. 9 to reject Ben Gamla's application, according to Tulsa World. The board's reasoning wasn't hidden or disputed: it believed Oklahoma law required the rejection because of a 2024 Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling.

The St. Isidore precedent that started this

That 2024 ruling came out of a different case, involving St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board had approved St. Isidore in 2023, and it was on track to open for the 2024-25 school year, per K12 Dive. The Oklahoma Supreme Court then ordered the board to kill the contract, ruling that a charter school is effectively a government entity under state law, and that funding a religious one violated the Oklahoma Constitution's ban on public money for religious institutions.

Because the state court treated St. Isidore as a state actor rather than a private grant recipient, it also concluded the rejection didn't violate the First Amendment's free exercise clause. That case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which deadlocked 4-4 last year with Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused. A tie leaves the lower ruling standing but sets no national precedent, and how the eight participating justices voted was never disclosed.

Why Ben Gamla is a different fight

Ben Gamla never had a contract to cancel. It's a fresh applicant that got turned down before ever operating, which is why the same legal question is now being tested in federal court instead of state court.

Judge Russell leaned on Carson v. Makin, the 2022 Supreme Court decision holding that once a state opens a generally available public benefit, it can't carve out religious applicants. "The state created a generally available benefit: the opportunity to apply for and contract with a sponsor to establish a charter school," Russell wrote, according to the Epoch Times. "But the state categorically excludes religious institutions from participating. As Carson plainly stated, '[t]hat is discrimination against religion.'"

Notably, Oklahoma's own charter school board didn't fight the injunction. Board attorneys from First Liberty Institute told the court they wanted to comply with the First Amendment all along but felt boxed in by the Drummond ruling, and they argued in favor of the injunction rather than against it. First Liberty counsel Holly Randall called the outcome a win: "We're grateful the court answered this important question of the law."

Becket Fund senior counsel Daniel Chen, who represents Ben Gamla, said the foundation "now gets what it should have had from the start: a fair shot to serve Oklahoma families." Foundation founder Peter Deutsch said, "The state cannot single out religious schools for exclusion while welcoming everyone else into the charter school program."

Opponents call it a break from church-state separation

The pushback isn't coming from the state. It's coming from seven Oklahoma residents granted intervenor status, represented by the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Education Law Center, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice. Their attorneys argue that forcing taxpayers to fund a school that integrates religious teaching into "every 'dimension of life,'" as they put it, violates state and federal law and represents what Ground News's roundup of coverage described intervenor attorneys calling "a dangerous sea change for our democracy." Their concern, stated plainly, is that public dollars will now underwrite religious instruction in a system built to be secular and open to everyone.

That's a real legal and policy dispute, not a fringe objection, and it hasn't been settled. Whether a charter school counts as a government entity (as the Oklahoma Supreme Court found for St. Isidore) or a private organization receiving a public benefit (Russell's framing for Ben Gamla, drawing on Carson v. Makin and Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue from 2020) is precisely the unresolved question the Supreme Court's 4-4 tie left open nationally.

What happens next

Russell's order is a preliminary injunction, not final approval. Ben Gamla still has to clear the board's remaining statutory requirements before any charter is signed, and K12 Dive reports the school was targeting a 2027-28 opening. Thrive News reports an appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected, which would put the underlying constitutional question back in front of a federal appellate court, and potentially, eventually, a Supreme Court no longer deadlocked at 4-4.