First Religious US Charter School Can Move Forward As Legal Challenge Proceeds
OKLAHOMA CITY — National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School, on track to become the first religious charter school in the nation, may proceed as it challenges in court an Oklahoma law blocking the school, a federal district judge ruled Thursday.
The National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation is challenging the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act that blocks religious organizations from opening such publicly funded schools because of their religious nature.
“The nonsectarian provision in the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients solely because of their religious character,” Judge David L. Russell wrote for the U.S. District Court of Western Oklahoma, “because it violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”
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“The court again emphasizes that by this opinion it does not express a judgment on the wisdom of the State of Oklahoma opening up its coffers to charter schools of disparate philosophical or educational persuasions,” Russell wrote. “However, having done so, it cannot, pursuant to the Free Exercise Clause, single out religious schools for exclusion solely because of their religious character.”
Becket law firm representing Ben Gamla said Oklahoma’s law was destined to fail, although the ruling is a preliminary injunction.
“The Constitution doesn’t permit the state to welcome every kind of charter school except a religious one,” Becket senior counsel Daniel Chen said of the ruling that allows the school to proceed as its challenge works its way through the courts. “Ben Gamla now gets what it should have had from the start: a fair shot to serve Oklahoma families.”
Ben Gamla foundation founder Peter Deutsch deemed the ruling “a victory for educational freedom, religious equality and families in Oklahoma.
The state,” Deutsch said, “cannot single out religious schools for exclusion while welcoming everyone else into the charter school program. We’re eager to open wide the doors of educational opportunity in Oklahoma.”
Deutsch also founded in 2006 the Ben Gamla Charter School Foundation, which does not specify Jewish in its title, and now operates four charter schools in Florida, offering secular curriculums incorporating Hebrew, Israeli history and Jewish culture. In 2025, he incorporated in Oklahoma the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation and applied for charter authorization as an online option for families statewide.
Deutsch’s efforts follow the failed attempt of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to open in Oklahoma in 2023 what would have been the first religious charter school in the state. St. Isidore took its fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, which deadlocked 4-4 in its ruling, leaving in place the state’s high court ruling against the school. Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett recused herself in the ruling.
Elsewhere, Wilberforce Academy of Knoxville is awaiting a January 2027 trial in its attempt to open a Christian charter school in Tennessee, which would also be a first. There, the academy filed suit in November 2025 after the Knox County Board of Education rejected the academy’s application to open a tuition-free, Christ-centered charter school.
More than three-fourths of Americans, 76 percent, favor government funding for religious organizations that serve the community, Becket’s 2025 Religious Freedom Index disclosed.
But several groups have opposed an explicitly Jewish school in Oklahoma, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Education Law Center, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.
The case is National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation v. Brian T. Shellem, in his official capacity as Chairman of the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board, et al. The defendants have 30 days to appeal the ruling that allows the Jewish charter school to open as soon as the 2027-2028 school year, if a final ruling blocking the school isn’t issued before next school year.
This article was originally published by Baptist Press.
Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.