(RNS) — A Texan whose children attend an Islamic school in Houston sued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Comptroller Kelly Hancock, alleging that schools for Muslim students are being excluded from the state’s new voucher program.
The program, introduced by the state’s Legislature in 2025, created a $1 billion fund for private school financial aid. But since Texas Education Freedom Accounts opened for applications on Feb. 4, 2026, none of the state’s accredited private Islamic schools has been listed among those eligible for reimbursement through the program.
The “blanket exclusion of a group of private schools on the basis of their religious affiliation is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution,” said Mehdi Cherkaoui, a father of two whose children are enrolled at the Houston Qu’ran Academy Spring, a private and accredited school excluded from the program. Cherkaoui, a lawyer who represents himself, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court on March 1.
The suit says the state unjustly targeted these schools, which Cherkaoui noted are “not schools where kids go to memorize the Qu’ran. They learn all subjects. … It is done in an Islamic context.”
In December, after Gov. Greg Abbott designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group, a “foreign terrorist organization” and a “transnational criminal organization,” Hancock sent a letter to Paxton inquiring about the legality of excluding schools with ties to “foreign terrorist organizations” and “transnational criminal organizations.” The attorney general responded by saying his office had full authority to exclude schools from the program.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton makes a statement at his office, May 26, 2023, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
The comptroller’s letter raised concerns that a private school that had hosted a Council on American-Islamic Relations event might benefit from the voucher program. His letter, posted on X, also expressed alarm over the possible inclusion of schools with ties to the communist Chinese government.
“These circumstances appear to implicate newly enacted laws restricting property ownership, control, and financial influence by foreign adversary entities in Texas,” the letter read.
In his response to Hancock, Paxton argued the comptroller’s office had “full, exclusive statutory authority” to “prohibit schools from TEFA participation.”
In January, Hancock announced, again on his X account, that “no schools or organizations with ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations” would receive “Texas tax dollars” through the TEFA program. “Texas tax dollars should never be used to support terrorists or foreign adversaries,” Hancock wrote.
Hancock has not offered any evidence that all Islamic schools excluded from the TEFA program have ties to CAIR.
The dispute over the TEFA program comes amid growing hostility from Republican elected officials in Texas toward the state’s Muslim residents and community leaders, which became a focal point in the state’s Republican primaries. Abbott has also designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist and criminal organization, which subjects the group to criminal penalties and allows the state’s attorney general to prompt legal actions to shut the group down.
