Federal judge blocks Oklahoma’s ban on religious charter schools

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction allowing the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to participate in Oklahoma’s publicly funded charter school program while a lawsuit proceeds. U.S. District Judge David L. Russell ruled that Oklahoma’s nonsectarian requirement, which excludes schools based on their religious character, raises constitutional concerns under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause.

The ruling challenges the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board’s decision to deny Ben Gamla’s application earlier this year. The board had cited state statutes and a 2024 Oklahoma Supreme Court precedent to justify the rejection, maintaining that charter schools must be nonsectarian and cannot be affiliated with religious institutions.

Ben Gamla, founded by Peter Deutsch, operates a network of Hebrew-language charter schools. The foundation argued that the state cannot exclude the organization from the public program solely due to its religious identity. The court found that the school suffered concrete injury through its exclusion from the available program.