Muslim parents, private schools sue Texas over exclusion of Islamic institutions in voucher program

Four Muslim parents and three private schools have sued Texas leaders for excluding Islamic private schools from participating in the state’s private school voucher program.

The two federal lawsuits ask the court to block the voucher program from discriminating on the basis of religion. The first suit, filed March 1 by a parent acting on behalf of two children who attend a Houston private school, names Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock and Education Commissioner Mike Morath as defendants. A second suit filed March 11 by three parents and three schools names Hancock and Mary Katherine Stout, education savings account program manager, as defendants.

Here’s what to know.

Background: Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2 into law in 2025, which authorized the creation of a statewide program that allows families to use public funds to pay for their children’s private school or home-school education.

Between Feb. 4 and March 17, virtually any family with school-age children in Texas can apply to participate. Private schools interested in joining the program can apply on a rolling basis, as long as they have existed for at least two years and received accreditation.

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More than 143,000 students have applied, while more than 2,100 private schools have been accepted.

Hancock — Texas’ chief financial officer who manages the voucher program — in late 2025 requested an opinion from Paxton, asking if he could exclude schools from the voucher program based on their connections to groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations or foreign adversaries.

Hancock said schools associated with the accreditation company Cognia had hosted events organized by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group that Gov. Greg Abbott recently designated a terrorist organization. CAIR has sued Abbott over the label, calling it defamatory and false. The U.S. State Department has not designated the organization a terrorist group.

Texas Republicans have made anti-Muslim rhetoric a focal point during primary election season. Hancock, appointed by the governor on an interim basis, is running to serve a full term as comptroller.

Hancock shut hundreds of Cognia-accredited schools out of the voucher program, including those that primarily serve Muslim students, Christian students and children with disabilities, which the Houston Chronicle first reported.

Paxton released an opinion in January stating his belief that Hancock has the authority to block certain schools from participating in the program if they are “illegally tied to terrorists or foreign adversaries.” To date, no Islamic schools are known to have been accepted into the state voucher program.

The comptroller’s office said it began inviting groups of Cognia schools that it considers in compliance with the law to participate, though it is unclear what that review entails.

In mid-February, Texas Senate Democrats called on Hancock to administer the program in a manner “neutral, transparent and consistent with the law and to immediately cease discriminatory and exclusionary practices that single out certain communities without lawful justification.”

Why the parents sued: Mehdi Cherkaoui, a Muslim father of two children and lawyer representing himself in the March 1 lawsuit, argued that state leaders “have systematically targeted Islamic schools for exclusion.”

The Islamic schools blocked from joining the program meet the voucher program’s eligibility requirements and “have no actual connection to terrorism or unlawful activity,” the lawsuit states. That includes Houston Qur’an Academy Spring, a private school attended by Cherkaoui’s two children.

Cherkaoui pays almost $18,000 per year in tuition for his children at the Houston private school and wants to apply for the nearly $10,500 per child in voucher funding to offset those costs, according to the lawsuit. But with Islamic schools blocked from participating in the program, the suit says, Cherkaoui cannot complete the application.

“The exclusion is not based on individualized findings of unlawful conduct by any specific school, but rather on categorical presumptions that Islamic schools are suspect and potentially linked to terrorism by virtue of their religious identity and community associations,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit names Hancock, the comptroller, because of his role overseeing the program; Paxton, the attorney general, because of his legal opinion backing Hancock; and Morath, the education commissioner, because his agency works with the comptroller’s office on certain program conditions.

Morath does not oversee private schools in Texas, but schools in the voucher program must receive accreditation from organizations recognized by his agency or the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission.

Before the voucher program’s March 17 deadline for family applications, the lawsuit asks that the court require the state to accept all Islamic schools that meet program requirements and prevent the state from delaying or denying approval based on schools’ religious identity, alleged “Islamic ties,” or “generalized associations with Islamic civil-rights or community organizations absent individualized, adjudicated findings of unlawful conduct.”

The second lawsuit, filed on March 11, makes similar requests. The suit was filed by Bayaan Academy, the Islamic Services Foundation and The Eagle Institute, which operate private schools in Galveston, Dallas and Collin counties respectively. Three parents were also listed as plaintiffs: Layla Daoudi, Muna Hamadah and Farhana Querishi. Each has children currently enrolled in private schools operated by the institutions suing.

Hancock, Paxton and Morath did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ayden Runnels contributed to this story.

This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.