A federal judge ruled that Oklahoma officials cannot exclude a Jewish school from the state’s charter school program, more than a year after the Supreme Court punted on the constitutionality of taxpayer-funded religious charter schools.
U.S. District Judge David Russell, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, found that Oklahoma officials’ denial of the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation into the charter program violates the First Amendment because the state cannot “single out religious schools for exclusion solely because of their religious character.” Oklahoma officials had argued that allowing the school into the program would violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which bars the government from establishing a state religion, an argument the judge rejected.
