According to an Oct. 15 press release from Oklahoma Attorney General Centner Drummond, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board at its Oct. 12 meeting rejected the application of the Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School. If the Board had approved the school, it would have been the first fully publicly funded religious charter school in the nation. A federal district court has already in a preliminary injunction action held that Oklahoma may not enforce a provision in its Charter Schools Act that requires a charter school to be “nonsectarian.” (See prior posting.) At last week's meeting, four board members voted to approve the school and 3 voted against, but a vote of 5 members of the 7-member board is required for approval. One member was absent from the meeting and there is one vacancy on the Board. The application was apparently rejected on grounds of financial viability and community need. The rejection led the Attorney General to voluntarily dismiss without prejudice his complaint in Drummond v. Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board (Notice of Dismissal, (OK Dist. Ct., filed 10/15/2026- full text) which sought to have the Board to reject the school's application on non-constitutional grounds. The Attorney General's Notice of Dismissal says in part:
The federal action challenged the Board's rejection of this application on account of Ben Gamla's religious character. That rejection has been superseded by one resting on non-religious grounds, no application by Ben Gatnla is pending before the Board, and the Board is applying no religious criterion to Ben Gamla. The action is therefore moot.... An injunction against the nonsectarian requirement can no longer redress Ben Gamla's claimed injury, because that requirement is no longer what stands between Ben Gamla and a charter. The Attorney General expects the federal action to be dismissed on that basis.
When it is, the federal court's preliminary ruling will carry no continuing legal force. A preliminary injunction is not an adjudication on the merits....
All of this will presumably prevent the question of the constitutionality of publicly funded religious schools getting quickly to the U.S. Supreme Court which previously split evenly on the issue. (See prior posting.) Oklahoma's Attorney General has previously opposed religious charter schools on the ground that the state will then be required to fund schools promoting tenets opposed to the beliefs of most Oklahomans. (See prior posting.)
The Oklahoman reports on these developments.
