JTA — Supporters of a proposed Jewish school that was denied entry to Oklahoma’s charter school program filed a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, in the latest effort to legalize publicly funded religious charter schools in the United States.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to strike down Oklahoma’s ban on religious charter schools and to order the state to stop denying applicants on the basis of their religious character.

“We’re asking the court to end that blatant religious targeting and allow families to choose schools that are best for them,” Peter Deutsch, a former Democratic congressman in Florida and founder of the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation, said in a statement.

The lawsuit alleges that Oklahoma’s requirement that charter schools be “nonsectarian” is unconstitutional, citing the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The 23-page complaint, filed in the Western District of Oklahoma, was expected. Ben Gamla’s legal team, led by the prominent religious liberty firm Becket, was assembled before the application was even submitted last year, and its attorneys have said from the start that they........

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