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2026-09-29 19:52 UTC → 2026-10-15 09:34 UTC ·
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A Following a federal district judge has court ruling that issued a preliminary injunction against Oklahoma’s nonsectarian requirement for charter schools. U.S. District Judge David L. Russell ruled schools, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board has narrowly rejected the application for the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School. In a 4-3 vote, the board fell one vote short of the five votes required for approval, a result impacted by one absent member and one vacant seat. The proposed school, a project of former congressman Peter Deutsch, sought to integrate traditional secular subjects with daily Jewish religious studies. The rejection occurs despite the previous federal decision which found that the state’s policy, which uses policy of using religious affiliation as an automatic disqualifier for applications, violates violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The ruling allows While the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to continue its pursuit of a virtual school in the state. The decision application has stalled, proponents view these ongoing legal challenges as a significant test case for the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board’s previous denial future of the application, which had been based on state statutes and a 2024 Oklahoma publicly funded religious education under evolving Supreme Court precedent regarding religious institutions. The court found that the foundation suffered “concrete injury” through its exclusion from interpretations of the publicly funded program. First Amendment.