Texas accepts some Islamic schools into voucher program after lawsuits

The Texas comptroller has accepted several Islamic private schools into the state’s voucher program after the institutions sued to gain admittance.

Four Muslim parents and three Islamic private school providers that operate four campuses had sued Texas leaders for excluding the schools while accepting hundreds of other non-Islamic schools.

The two federal lawsuits asked the court to block the private school voucher program from discriminating on the basis of religion. As part of the dispute, U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett has extended the voucher application deadline to March 31 and ordered the state to consider the schools’ request to join the voucher program. The next hearing is set for April 24.

The first lawsuit, filed March 1 by a parent acting on behalf of two children who attend a Houston private school, names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock and Education Commissioner Mike Morath as defendants. A second suit filed March 11 by three parents and three schools names Hancock and Mary Katherine Stout, the voucher program director, as defendants. The two cases are now consolidated into one.

Here’s what to know.

Background:

Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2 into law in 2025, which authorized the creation of a statewide program that allows families to use public funds to pay for their children’s private school or home-school education.

Between Feb. 4 and March 31, virtually any family with school-age children in Texas can apply to participate. A lottery will determine who can receive the funds, pending their acceptance to a private school. Private schools interested in joining the program can apply on a rolling basis, as long as they have existed for at least two years and received accreditation.

More than 200,000 students have applied, while more than 2,200 private schools have been accepted.

Hancock — Texas’ chief financial officer whose office oversees the voucher program — in late 2025 requested an opinion from Paxton, asking if he could exclude schools from the voucher program based on their connections to groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations or foreign adversaries.

Hancock said schools associated with the accreditation company Cognia had hosted events organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group that Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated a terrorist organization. CAIR has sued Abbott over the label, calling it defamatory and false. The U.S. State Department has not designated the organization a terrorist group.

Texas Republicans have made anti-Muslim rhetoric a focal point during primary election season. Hancock, appointed by the governor on an interim basis, ran to serve a full term as comptroller before losing his race.

Hancock shut hundreds of Cognia-accredited schools out of the voucher program, including those that primarily serve Muslim students, Christian students and children with disabilities, which the Houston Chronicle first reported.

Paxton released an opinion in January stating his belief that Hancock has the authority to block certain schools from participating in the program if they are “illegally tied to terrorists or foreign adversaries.” Before the lawsuit, no Islamic schools were known to have been accepted into the state voucher program.

The comptroller’s office said it began inviting groups of Cognia schools that it considers in compliance with the law to participate, though it is unclear what that review entails. The Cognia schools accepted into the program did not include any Islamic institutions until after the federal court intervened.

In mid-February, Texas Senate Democrats called on Hancock to administer the program in a manner “neutral, transparent and consistent with the law and to immediately cease discriminatory and exclusionary practices that single out certain communities without lawful justification.”

Why the parents sued:

Mehdi Cherkaoui, a Muslim father of two children and lawyer representing himself in the March 1 lawsuit, argued that state leaders “have systematically targeted Islamic schools for exclusion.”

The Islamic schools blocked from joining the program meet the voucher program’s eligibility requirements and “have no actual connection to terrorism or unlawful activity,” the lawsuit states. That includes Houston Qur’an Academy Spring, a private school attended by Cherkaoui’s two children.

Cherkaoui pays almost $18,000 per year in tuition for his children at the Houston private school and wants to apply for the nearly $10,500 per child in voucher funding to offset those costs, according to the lawsuit. But with Islamic schools blocked from participating in the program, the suit says, Cherkaoui cannot complete the application.

“The exclusion is not based on individualized findings of unlawful conduct by any specific school, but rather on categorical presumptions that Islamic schools are suspect and potentially linked to terrorism by virtue of their religious identity and community associations,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit names Hancock, the comptroller, because of his role overseeing the program; Paxton, the attorney general, because of his legal opinion backing Hancock; and Morath, the education commissioner, because his agency works with the comptroller’s office on certain program conditions.

Morath does not oversee private schools in Texas, but schools in the voucher program must receive accreditation from organizations recognized by his agency or the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission.

Before the voucher program’s original March 17 deadline for family applications, the lawsuit asked that the court require the state to accept all Islamic schools that meet program requirements and prevent the state from delaying or denying approval based on schools’ religious identity, alleged “Islamic ties,” or “generalized associations with Islamic civil-rights or community organizations absent individualized, adjudicated findings of unlawful conduct.”

The second lawsuit, filed March 11, makes similar requests. The suit was filed by Bayaan Academy, the Islamic Services Foundation (Little Horizons Academy and Brighter Horizons Academy), and The Eagle Institute (Excellence Academy), which operate private schools in Galveston, Dallas and Collin counties, respectively. Three parents also listed as plaintiffs — Layla Daoudi, Muna Hamadah and Farhana Querishi — have children currently enrolled in private schools that are part of the lawsuit.

Hancock, Paxton and Morath did not respond to requests for comment.

How the state responded:

In court filings, Paxton’s office argued that because families who apply for the voucher program do not have to select a school until July 15, they are not harmed by the exclusion of Islamic schools.

Paxton’s office also said the comptroller’s office has not “denied” any private schools from participating until the July 15 deadline passes. Cognia-accredited schools require independent review, the state argued, due to the company “erroneously” listing schools as accredited without completing final steps. The Islamic schools suing the state are accredited by Cognia, the lawyers noted.

The schools’ “injuries will only manifest if the Comptroller denies their respective applications or otherwise fails to determine eligibility by July 15,” Paxton’s legal filing said.

The state also argued “it would be fundamentally unfair” to extend the application deadline and “disrupt” the educational plans of hundreds of thousands of parents.

“It is noteworthy that, as the day turns over to 12:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 18, neither Parent Plaintiffs nor School Plaintiffs will suddenly begin to experience harm,” the lawyers wrote. “The Parent Plaintiffs will all still be eligible for the lottery and be able to direct funds to an approved school of their choice at a later date if they are selected in the lottery. School Plaintiffs will still presumably be under review by the Comptroller.”

The court ruling and its aftermath:

A March 17 order from U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett prevents the state from considering which families will receive school voucher funding until after the order expires March 31, though Bennett could extend it.

It also requires the state to update its voucher application website to reflect the new deadline and provide the schools that filed the lawsuit an opportunity to register for the program. It does not require the state to add them to the list of approved schools.

The comptroller’s office said March 19 that it accepted into the program schools that sued and that of a parent named in the lawsuit.

“The ongoing process to review and add more schools is also continuing,” comptroller spokesperson Travis Pillow said.

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This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.