Drummond drops lawsuit over Jewish charter school vote

OKLAHOMA CITY — Attorney General Gentner Drummond has dropped a lawsuit against a state board after it rejected a proposed Jewish charter school for the second time.

Drummond dismissed his case Thursday in Oklahoma County District Court without prejudice, meaning it could be filed again.

The lawsuit accused the Statewide Charter School Board of deliberately rigging its March 9 vote to reject the Jewish charter school solely because of its religious character. 

Drummond alleged there were other material reasons besides the religious element to deny the school, like a lack of community support and wild swings in projected enrollment, but the board intentionally left those issues out of its vote, which strengthened the school’s case in court.

Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School proposed an online, faith-based education that would teach both Judaism and secular subjects. 

The board’s legal counsel has received Drummond’s dismissal letter and has begun to read it, said A.J. Ferate, an attorney representing the board.

“Given that the board is trying to determine its next steps, (it) will decline to comment at this time,” he said.

The board on Monday voted again on Ben Gamla after an Oklahoma City federal court judge granted a preliminary injunction in the school’s favor. The judge decided a charter school can’t be denied solely for being religious. 

But, the school’s application fell one vote short of receiving board approval in the Monday meeting.

Ben Gamla has faced vocal opposition from Oklahoma’s Jewish community, raising concerns about the school’s ability to recruit students. 

Board member William Pearson said that was “what played mostly in my mind” when he voted against the school on Monday. Two other dissenting board members declined to comment on the reasoning for their votes.

The school’s leading founder, former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, of Florida, told a Tulsa rabbi on Sept. 30 the Ben Gamla school expected only 10 students to enroll in its first year.

The board’s vote, combined with the low enrollment expectations, confirm Ben Gamla’s application “fails on grounds having nothing to do with religion,” Drummond contended in his dismissal motion.

The attorney general expects the school’s federal lawsuit to be dismissed as a result of the rejection, his motion states. After that, the federal preliminary injunction would “carry no continuing legal force,” and a previous Oklahoma Supreme Court decision against religious charter schools “remains the law of this state,” he wrote.

State law allows no further board action on Ben Gamla unless its founders file a new application, the attorney general said.

“From day one, this case was about making a state agency tell the whole truth about why it rejected a deeply flawed application,” Drummond said in a statement Thursday. “My office warned this Board in March that the school had no community support and no realistic path to the enrollment it promised. The founder’s own words have now proved that right, so the court no longer needs to step in.”