Seven mostly Jewish Oklahoma taxpayers urged a federal court to uphold the state’s February denial of an application to open a publicly funded Jewish charter school.
Attorneys for the citizens argued during an Aug. 5 federal court hearing in Oklahoma City that the proposed Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School would violate U.S. and state laws that define charter schools as public institutions that must be secular and open to all students.
The group is represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, American Civil Liberties Union, Education Law Center, and Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Daniel Mach
“We’re urging the court to reaffirm the time-honored, core legal principle that public schools can’t be religious, and religious schools can’t be public schools,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “That foundational idea has been crucial to protect both religious liberty and public education for so long, and there’s simply no reason to abandon it now.”
The group opposed to the school includes clergy, teachers and parents of public school students. In June, they were granted intervener status, essentially making them defendants in The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, Inc. v. Shellem.
The lawsuit was filed in March in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, naming members of the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, including Chairman Brian Shellem, as defendants for rejecting the foundation’s bid to create the virtual Jewish charter school.
The project is promoted by former Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, founder of the Ben Gamla network of nonreligious charter schools in Florida. But Deutsch said the Oklahoma school would be a separate entity that would take a faith-based approach to education, Oklahoma Voice reported in November.
“It should be beyond question that every part of our public education system must be open and welcoming to all students.”
“Ben Gamla envisions Oklahoma students gaining a rigorous, values-based education that integrates general academic excellence with Jewish religious learning and ethical development,” Deutsch wrote in his letter of intent to the charter school board.
Looming over the Ben Gamla case is the failed 2023 attempt by two Catholic jurisdictions to launch St. Isidore Seville as a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma. While approved by the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board that year, a lawsuit by a group of education supporters, clergy and parents led to a state Supreme Court ruling barring the use of taxpayer money to finance the project. That ruling was upheld by 4-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Deutch and the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation are represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which noted the charter school board praised the Ben Gamla model but rejected it due to the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling on St. Isidore Seville.
Daniel Chen
“Oklahoma makes room in its charter program for schools of all shapes and sizes, from those focused on science and fine arts to language immersion and classical education,” Becket attorney Daniel Chen said. “The one it refuses to make room for is a faith-based school. That is religious discrimination, plain and simple, and the state deserves a failing grade for it.”
Deutch described the board’s decision as patently unfair. “Oklahoma grants charters to private schools of all types, including schools focused on Native American traditions or pretty much any other philosophy — just so long as the school is not religious. That type of religious discrimination must end.”
Robert Kim
But it is a public school open only to members of a single faith that is unfair, said Robert Kim, executive director of the Education Law Center. “It should be beyond question that every part of our public education system must be open and welcoming to all students. Our clients are standing up for the values that define not just our public schools but our democracy as well.”
Americans United President Rachel Laser added that many of the school’s opponents are Jewish. “We urge the court to protect all Oklahomans’ religious freedom and affirm that this religious public charter school violates Oklahoma law and the U.S. Constitution. Oklahoma public school families, Jewish leaders and taxpayers have spoken — they want their public schools to remain open to all beliefs.”
Brent Rowland, executive director of Oklahoma Appleseed, said the Ben Gamla school would violate constitutional principles and state law. “Oklahoma has been down this road. Our courts said charter schools are public schools, and public schools don’t teach religion — that’s still the law here, and it doesn’t change because a different faith is asking this time. Our clients want that principle applied evenly, which is the only way it protects anyone.”