A federal judge has temporarily barred Oklahoma from excluding a proposed Jewish school from the state’s publicly funded charter-school program solely because of its religious character.
U.S. District Judge David Russell granted a preliminary injunction Thursday to the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation. Oklahoma law describes charter schools as public schools and requires them to be nonsectarian. Russell concluded that the nonsectarian condition likely violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause when applied to an otherwise eligible applicant.
The order does not establish the school or finally resolve the constitutional dispute. It gives Ben Gamla an opportunity to pursue approval while the lawsuit continues. Taxpayers and families who intervened to defend the restriction can appeal the interim ruling, and they have argued that publicly financed charter schools must remain secular and open to all students.
The case arrives after the Supreme Court divided 4–4 in 2025 over a different Oklahoma proposal for a Catholic virtual charter school. That tie left an Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling against that school in place without creating a national precedent. Russell relied instead on Supreme Court decisions limiting the government’s ability to exclude religious participants from generally available benefit programs.
Because the injunction is preliminary, the court may revisit the issues on a fuller record. Any appeal would go to the Tenth Circuit.
