(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 th …