Texas Excluded Islamic Schools from its Mega Voucher Program—Now It’s Facing a Constitutional Crisis

For a longer period of time than nearly any other Republican-led state, Texas has opposed school voucher programs. Therefore, it felt like a turning point when the Texas Education Freedom Accounts program was finally passed by the legislature in 2025. a pledge of $1 billion. Suddenly, hundreds of private schools could receive public funding. Parental choice fulfilled on a large scale.

The program is now facing a lawsuit that could change how states administer voucher programs nationwide before it has even started its first full school year. The lawsuit raises issues that have no clear answers.

Key Information: Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) Program
Program Name	Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA)
Administering Authority	Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock
Program Size	$1 billion over two years — on track to be the largest in the U.S.
Standard ESA Amount	Approximately $10,000 per student annually
Students with Disabilities	Up to $30,000 per student
Home-School Students	$2,000 available
Year Texas Passed Legislation	2025
Plaintiff	Mehdi Cherkaoui, attorney and father, Houston
Defendants	AG Ken Paxton, Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock, Education Commissioner Mike Morath
School Involved	Houston Qur’An Academy Spring, north of Houston
Application Deadline (Students)	March 17 (per Houston Chronicle)
Legal Basis of Exclusion	AG opinion citing ties to foreign terrorist organizations
Reference Source	EdChoice Advocacy Group — tracks national school choice data

Mehdi Cherkaoui is a Houston lawyer and the father of two children who attend Houston Qur’An Academy Spring, an Islamic private school located north of the city. He filed the lawsuit on a Sunday, which may have been symbolic or just practical.

He claimed religious discrimination after learning that hundreds of other schools, mostly Christian, had successfully completed the application process while not a single accredited Islamic private school had been granted permission to participate in TEFA. It’s the kind of discrepancy that is difficult to justify once you see it.

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s opinion, which granted Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock the power to prohibit schools with connections to foreign adversaries or terrorist groups that Texas officials have designated, is the legal basis for the exclusion.

Hancock specifically disregarded educational institutions that were accredited by a group that had organized events related to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights organization that Governor Greg Abbott has formally designated as a terrorist organization. An already complex situation is further complicated by the fact that CAIR itself is suing over that designation.

This is made more complicated by the fact that Islamic schools were not the only ones excluded. The accreditation net also caught some schools that catered mostly to Christian students and students with disabilities, disqualifying them for administrative affiliations they might not have fully understood at the time of enrollment rather than their religious identity. Even though intent is still debatable, there is a certain accidental aspect to it that doesn’t lessen the outcome’s discriminatory effect.

This has nothing to do with religion, according to Mandy Drogin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank that has long supported school choice. She claims that rather than institutional access, the program is built around parental choice.

Mosques are not being targeted by the state. It aims to prevent public funds from going to groups that are allegedly connected to foreign countries. When you consider the actual outcomes—Islamic schools closing, Christian schools opening, and a father bringing a federal lawsuit on a Sunday afternoon—the distinction seems reasonable.

The result doesn’t surprise David DeMatthews, an educational leadership professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He notes that there is a documented history of access issues with school choice programs, including for Black students, students with disabilities, and anyone who doesn’t neatly fit into a particular institution’s preferred profile.

He claims that this seems to be the same pattern occurring under a different rationale. He might be correct. The state’s national-security justification might also hold up in court. That part will be decided by the courts.

There is no doubt that Texas created something huge here, a program that is currently being used by almost 1.5 million students nationwide in various forms across 18 states. The first significant test came from a question about whether a Muslim family in Houston has the same access as their neighbors, not from budget disputes or enrollment figures. This lawsuit revolves around that question. When the answer is revealed, it won’t only affect Texas.