This story was originally published by ProPublica.
by Lexi Churchill, ProPublica — Co-published with The Texas Tribune
Nearly a decade ago, a British court ordered a man named Sam Westrop to pay the equivalent of more than $173,000 in libel damages after he published an article on his website calling the founder of a London-based Islamic TV channel a “convicted terrorist.” Westrop eventually admitted the underlying evidence for the claim was not reliable, according to court filings, and corrected the story on his website. “There simply was no evidence to support the allegation of terrorism,” the judge in the case wrote.
Years after that ruling, Westrop made similar claims about a group of Islamic private schools in Texas that had applied to the state’s new voucher program. He alleged the school leaders had connections to Islamic extremist or terrorist groups, such as Hamas. Westrop shared his research as early as last fall with the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, which oversees the voucher program that awards eligible families taxpayer dollars for private education or homeschooling.
The extent of the state’s probe and Westrop’s involvement are detailed as part of a new trove of legal filings in a lawsuit four Islamic private school campuses filed against the state comptroller in March after the agency initially kept them out of the program. It draws heavily on an eight-hour deposition of Murl Miller, the comptroller’s chief counsel for general litigation, taken in May as part of the lawsuit.
While the comptroller has since accepted all of the investigated schools into the voucher program, the schools that pursued the legal action are still asking the judge to certify a class-action lawsuit to ensure the comptroller can’t discriminate against certain private schools in the future. “Religious liberty is not a temporary pass issued after a lawsuit,” said Eric Hudson, an attorney representing the Islamic schools. “We’re pressing on so equal treatment is the rule — not an exception granted under pressure.”
The filing also said the comptroller initially approved at least one of the Islamic schools represented in the lawsuit for the voucher program, Bayaan Academy, then later removed it two hours after Westrop shared some of his research in January via email, out of more than 2,600 private schools now approved for the voucher program.
Miller’s deposition cited a range of sources that prompted the comptroller’s investigations into the schools, including Westrop, a regional Homeland Security Task Force launched last summer, congressional hearings probing potential terrorist activities in Texas and the RAIR Foundation, an activist and investigative journalism organization. Miller spoke with Westrop on the phone at one point this year and told lawyers Westrop appeared credible.
Filings also cite a letter the state’s acting comptroller sent the state attorney general, in which he continued pushing claims linking a Houston Quran Academy’s principal to the Muslim Brotherhood and called for the school’s removal from the voucher program; the school’s principal has said it has no ties to CAIR and is “purely academic.” Of those comments, Miller said in his deposition, “There’s a lot of mistakes and misstatements.”
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