Last year, Texas enacted one of the country's most expansive school-choice policies. The Texas Education Freedom Accounts program now serves more than 100,000 students, enabling families to choose the learning environments that align with their values and best meet their children’s learning needs.

School choice at this scale is worth celebrating. School-choice policies reflect the Constitution’s commitment to religious liberty and America’s longstanding recognition that parents, not the state, are the primary educators of their children.

A century ago, the Supreme Court struck down a Ku Klux Klan-backed Oregon law that would have banned private schooling, ruling in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that “the child is not the mere creature of the state.” Parents, the Court recognized, have the right and primary authority “to direct the upbringing and education” of their children.

Half a century later, in Yoder v. Wisconsin, the Court reaffirmed the “fundamental interest of parents to guide the religious future and education of their children.” The Court declared that only “interests of the highest order” can override these fundamental freedoms.

The Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020) and Carson v. Makin (2022) decisions built on that foundation, holding that states cannot exclude otherwise qualified private schools from generally available scholarship programs merely because they are religious. The Court ruled that such discrimination is “odious to the Constitution.”

But Texas policymakers are now facing a question that school-choice advocates cannot avoid: What if parents choose schools funded by foreign adversaries that indoctrinate students to hate people who are not like them, and whose founders and staff have documented ties to terrorist organizations?

>>> School Choice Is About Religious Liberty, Not Just Better Test Scores

What is the limit of school choice?

Earlier this year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott drew a line when he declared: “There’s no school choice for schools with ties to organizations that have connections to terrorism.” Several months earlier, Abbott had designated the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as foreign terrorist organizations. (CAIR is challenging that designation.)

After those designations, acting comptroller Kelly Hancock wrote to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asking whether schools with ties to those organizations or the Chinese government could be excluded from the TEFA program. Paxton’s reply was unambiguous: “Let me be crystal clear: Texans’ tax dollars should never fund Islamic terrorists or America’s enemies.” Hancock then announced no schools with such ties would receive Texas tax dollars through TEFA.

That principle—that public funds should not flow to schools with ties to terrorist organizations or hostile foreign powers—is sound. All freedoms have limits. Liberty is not license. A state has a compelling interest in ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not subsidize the indoctrination of children to hate America or to support terrorism.

But even the soundest principle can be implemented in an unsound, or even unconstitutional manner.

In March 2026, Houston-area attorney and father Mehdi Cherkaoui filed a federal lawsuit against Paxton, Hancock, and Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, alleging that state officials had “systematically targeted Islamic schools for exclusion based on their religious identity.” His complaint observed that as of early 2026, hundreds of private schools across Texas—including numerous Christian schools—had been approved for TEFA, while not a single accredited Islamic school had been admitted. Cherkaoui sought to use TEFA funds to cover his children’s tuition at the Houston Quran Academy, but the school was not approved under the program. Three Islamic schools and additional parents joined a second suit shortly thereafter.

State officials denied the discrimination charge, explaining to the court that the comptroller’s office “had issues with processing and reviewing schools accredited by the nonprofit Cognia, regardless of whether they have Islamic affiliations.”

U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett was not satisfied with that explanation. On March 17, hours before the original application deadline, he issued a temporary restraining order. At the emergency hearing, Bennett called the complete absence of approved Islamic schools “troubling,” remarking: “If you were to roll dice in a game of chance… you would not come up with those numbers. The appearance of this reeks.” He extended the student application deadline to March 31 and ordered state officials to receive and process applications from Islamic schools through the normal TEFA process. Within days, four Islamic schools were admitted: Brighter Horizons Academy in Garland, Bayaan Academy, Excellence Academy near Plano, and the Houston Quran Academy.

If it is true that the Muslim schools were not approved solely due to their religious affiliation, that would be a clear violation of their First Amendment rights. The Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty undoubtedly prohibits such blanket discrimination.

However, the story is not so clear-cut. Two of the four schools now receiving TEFA funds—Brighter Horizons and the Houston Quran Academy—are at the center of serious, documented concerns regarding their institutional histories and affiliations.

Brighter Horizons Academy, based in Garland, is a subsidiary of the Islamic Services Foundation. According to a detailed investigation by the Middle East Forum (MEF), the school was established in part by Rasmi Almallah, who served on the board of the Holy Land Foundation—the largest terrorism financing operation in American history—and was named an unindicted co-conspirator in its 2008 federal trial.

ISF’s 2001 tax filings listed Mufid Abdelqader, a convicted HLF official and the brother of senior Hamas leader Khaled Mishal, as vice-president. His niece, Sarah Abdulqader, is currently a teacher at Brighter Horizons, and MEF notes that she “has been a passionate supporter of her convicted Hamas-financing father.” Previous staff reportedly included ISF director Nabil Sadoun, the lead author of ISF textbooks used at Brighter Horizons, a Jordanian Islamist activist whom the Dallas Morning News reported was “deported from the United States in 2010 for concealing Hamas ties on immigration paperwork.”

Some content in those ISF textbooks, used at Brighter Horizons and numerous other Islamic schools, is deeply troubling. According to MEF, one textbook teaches children ages seven and eight that non-Muslims are “the worst of creatures.” Another stresses the importance of jihad [the war against non-believers], stating: “When Muslims gave up jihad, did not abide by God’s will, started fighting among themselves and were submissive in the face of their enemies, God caused them to suffer greatly by allowing them to be dominated by those who do not fear Him or have any mercy for Islam.” The textbooks praise figures listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial, including one who “describes suicide bombers and Hamas terrorists as ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘martyrs.’”

The school’s foreign funding adds another dimension. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies reported that Brighter Horizons received approximately $995,000 from the Islamic Development Bank for construction and expansion. Iran, a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism, holds a significant capital share in the Islamic Development Bank and has representation on its governing board. During the Second Intifada, the bank directly managed funds that were paid to families of Palestinian terrorists who had been killed, injured, or imprisoned.

The Houston Quran Academy is operated by the Muslim American Society’s Katy Center (MAS). Federal prosecutors have described MAS as “the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.” The academy’s principal, Hamed Ghazali, also chairs MAS’s Council of Islamic Schools. In 1988, Ghazali appeared to solicit funds for organizations later found to have financed Hamas. The next year, he “openly defended calls for the killing of Salman Rushdie.” In 2019, members of Congress called for an investigation into a MAS Philadelphia branch after it hosted an event in which children sang about torturing and beheading Jews.

>>> Stop Writing Blank Checks to Campuses That Protect Hate

These are not isolated cases. Middle East Forum data counts almost 800 Islamic educational initiatives across the United States, of which a clear majority are under Islamist control. Ninety of these institutions are in Texas, and several dozen may benefit from the new school subsidy program. Across those schools, MEF investigators found staff members who have shared Hamas propaganda, praised convicted terrorists, called for the destruction of America, and had children pledge loyalty to the Iranian supreme leader. Much of this infrastructure is tied to foreign money and foreign movements.

These are investigative findings, not criminal convictions against the schools themselves. But they are serious enough that state officials were right to ask questions. The comptroller’s supposed initial approach—a blanket exclusion of all Islamic schools—collides with the Constitution’s guarantee of free exercise of religion. Judge Bennett was right to find that troubling. But a blanket approval driven by litigation is also troubling.

The solution to an overbroad exclusion is not a rubber stamp, but due diligence. States must comply with the Constitution while protecting against terrorism. That requires examining each applicant school on its own record. Some Islamic schools clearly should qualify for the TEFA program. Whether Brighter Horizons and the Houston Quran Academy belong there is a harder question, and one the state should be able to answer through genuine investigation rather than blanket exclusion or court-compelled approval.

States should provide families access to robust school-choice options while protecting religious liberty. State officials should also take their duty seriously to avoid funding schools with genuine ties to terrorism. Those goals are not mutually exclusive. They require only that officials be precise, consistent, and willing to do their homework.