Texas families now have at least another two weeks to apply for the state's new school voucher program after a federal judge in Houston ordered an extension on Tuesday – hours before the application window was set to close – according to the lead attorney for several of the plaintiffs who sued state officials over the exclusion of Islamic schools from the program.
U.S. District Judge Alfred Bennett ordered the deadline be extended from midnight Tuesday until March 31 amid an ongoing legal battle between Texas officials and a group of Muslim parents and Islamic private schools, said Eric Hudson, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Hudson said the judge also scheduled a permanent injunction hearing for April 24 and that the Texas comptroller's office, which is administering the $1 billion program, must ensure two Islamic schools – plaintiff Excellence Academy and the Houston Quran Academy in Katy, where another plaintiff's child goes to school – receive registration links to submit applications within 24 hours.
Hudson said the plaintiffs' immediate goal was to make sure the application window didn't shut parents out from Texas Education Freedom Accounts as a lottery system is being implemented because demand for the program has extended state funding. The longer-term goal, Hudson said, is to ensure Islamic schools can participate along with other private and parochial schools in Texas.
"The state has rigged the lottery," Hudson said. "They’ve done it in a way to try to exclude Muslim parents so that when they run the lottery, they’re less likely to be in the lottery system."
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The Office of the Texas Comptroller did not immediately comment on the judge's order.
According to Hudson, the comptroller's office was ordered to announce the change in the application period within 24 hours.
There are two ongoing civil rights lawsuits, one filed by a Muslim parent and the other filed by multiple Muslim parents and a group of Islamic schools, asking federal courts to prevent the voucher program from discriminating on the basis of religion. The former suit names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock and Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath as defendants, while the latter suit was filed against Hancock and Mary Katherine Stout, the manager of the Texas Education Freedom Accounts created last year by state lawmakers.
Bennett also ruled Tuesday that the lawsuits would be consolidated, according to Hudson.
The defendants are all being represented by attorneys in the Texas Attorney General's office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
More than 2,000 private institutions have been admitted to the voucher program, none of which are Islamic schools.
Hancock had asked Attorney General Ken Paxton for guidance in December over concerns that some applicant schools hosted events with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and that others were accredited by Cognia, a private school accreditor that state officials allege has ties to the Chinese government. Gov. Greg Abbott in November declared CAIR to be a terrorist organization, prompting pushback and legal action by the nationwide civil rights organization.
On Jan. 24, Paxton issued an opinion, though not legally binding, supporting Hancock's concerns, but punted the responsibility to investigate schools and determine their eligibility back to the comptroller's office. Paxton added that Texans deserve assurances that no taxpayer dollars will be used, directly or indirectly, to support institutions with ties to those groups.
"We appreciate the Attorney General's support of our full authority under state law to stop taxpayer dollars from being provided, directly or indirectly, to institutions tied to designated foreign terrorist organizations, criminal networks, or adversarial foreign governments," Hancock wrote in a statement posted to Facebook at the time. "This opinion makes clear that Texas will not tolerate taxpayer funds being diverted to bad actors."
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