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All three members of the Florida Cabinet are questioning the legality of the state voucher system that has steered taxpayer-funded scholarships to private Islamic schools that they contend undermine \u201cWestern\u201d values.<\/p>\n
Attorney General James Uthmeier, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, and Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, all Republicans and allies of the governor, are wondering whether Florida\u2019s universal\u00a0school voucher<\/a>\u00a0system allowing Floridians to attend certain private schools at discounted rates can be properly extended to the Hifz Academy and Bayaan Academy, Islamic schools in Tampa now accepting these scholarships.<\/p>\n The Cabinet, although powerful, lacks authority to set policy or stymie funding from the state to specific schools. That power resides with the Department of Education, which did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cSharia law seeks to destroy and supplant the pillars of our republican form of government and is incompatible with the Western tradition,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Uthmeier, who serves as Florida\u2019s chief legal officer, on social media Monday. \u201cThe use of taxpayer-funded school vouchers to promote Sharia law likely contravenes Florida law and undermines our national security.\u201d<\/p>\n However, his office declined to say whether he\u2019d pursue an investigation.<\/p>\n In a statement to the Phoenix, Ingoglia said his office is looking into these schools through a potential audit.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have the ability. We\u2019re already looking into it,\u201d said the Spring Hill Republican, who\u2019s led a statewide program of searching through the finances of local governments for potential \u201cwaste, fraud, and abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n Simpson, the former Florida Senate president who championed universal school choice, insisted in a statement to the Phoenix: \u201cSchools that indoctrinate Sharia law should not be a part of our taxpayer-funded school voucher program.\u201d<\/p>\n Of note, Florida\u2019s school voucher program applies to 2,278 private schools, and 82% of participating students attend a religious school. Roman Catholic schools are the\u00a0single largest<\/a>\u00a0religious recipients.<\/p>\n Cabinet members are elected statewide and independent of the governor. DeSantis appointed Uthmeier and Ingoglia earlier this year to fill vacancies.<\/p>\n \u2018No place in the USA\u2019<\/p>\n This wouldn\u2019t be the first time Florida has nixed voucher funds for schools.<\/p>\n Most recently, DeSantis in 2023 directed the education department to\u00a0pull voucher funds<\/a>\u00a0from schools with alleged ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Before that, the DOE in 2003\u00a0dropped<\/a>\u00a0voucher funds for Tampa\u2019s Islamic Academy of Florida after two of its affiliates were charged (and later convicted) for\u00a0terrorism ties<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Republicans\u2019 push to more closely examine the schools\u2019 finances comes amid a broader push to crack down on Sharia Law, Islam\u2019s legal system, derived from the Quran. This was largely sparked by the Oct. 7 massacre by the Islamic militant group Hamas on Israelis two years ago, which led to a war that has only just begun to\u00a0wind down<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Florida member of Congress has since filed a bill to outlaw enforcement of Shari\u2019a Law in American systems, and a state representative months later filed\u00a0nearly identical<\/a>\u00a0language in the Florida Legislature. Neither bill appeared to be based on any example of Sharia law in the U.S., but were described as\u00a0preventative<\/a>. Neither measure would apply to school voucher funding.<\/p>\n The governor\u2019s office referred the Phoenix to a post by DeSantis in early October insisting that Sharia law \u201chas no place in the USA\u201d and is \u201cincompatible\u201d with the Constitution, and did not indicate that he would instruct DOE to pull their funding.<\/p>\n The word \u201cSharia\u201d did not appear on the websites of either\u00a0Hifz Academy<\/a>\u00a0nor\u00a0Bayaan Academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Where did the controversy come from?<\/p>\n The\u00a0RAIR Foundation<\/a>, a right-wing media organization dedicated to opposing communism and \u201cIslamic Supremacy,\u201d last week\u00a0published<\/a>\u00a0a lengthy article and two videos claiming that Florida\u2019s school choice vouchers are being used to build \u201cSharia-run institutions\u201d that \u201cconvert public dollars into permanent Islamic infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n It pointed to two private Islamic schools in Tampa teaching both Islam and traditional school subjects at the K-12 level that accept school vouchers. Hifz was founded in 2011 and teaches 460 students at a rate of $9,600 per K-6th grader and $10,000 for every 7th-12th grader. Bayaan was founded in 2015 and teaches 200 students at a rate of $12,700 per K-5th grader, $14,700 per 6th-11th grader, and $7,350 per twelfth grader.<\/p>\n The article claims that Bayaan Academy\u2019s principal, Magda Elkadi Saleh, is the daughter of the late Ahmed Elkadi, a founding member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. South Florida congressmen earlier this year attempted to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a\u00a0terrorist organization<\/a>\u00a0for allegedly supporting terrorist groups.<\/p>\n Such scholarships for religious schools were first made possible by a 1999 law under then-Gov. Jeb Bush for low-income students searching outside the public school system. In 2023, the Legislature expanded the law to allow any Floridian, regardless of income, to apply for vouchers to go to private schools accepting these scholarships.<\/p>\n According to Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers most of the state\u2019s scholarships, Florida\u2019s school choice programs provide an average of between $7,700 and $8,500 to students attending non-public schools. More than 122,000 new students started using vouchers in the 2023-24 school year.<\/p>\n When asked for comment, the Council for American-Islamic Relations referred the Phoenix to a\u00a0Huffington Post article<\/a>\u00a0on RAIR\u2019s founder, Amy Mekelburg, documenting her controversial past; this includes calling former President Barack Obama a \u201cjihadist,\u201d attempting to free a man convicted of killing his girlfriend, and encouraging readers to follow a man known to praise Adolf Hitler.<\/p>\n Step Up for Students has yet to get back to the Phoenix about how much money the Tampa schools received from the student voucher programs.<\/p>\n Florida Phoenix<\/a> is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Subscribe to Creative Loafing newsletters.<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us:\u00a0Google News<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0NewsBreak<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Reddit<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Facebook\u00a0<\/a>|\u00a0BlueSky<\/a><\/p>\n Related Stories<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tThe entire Florida Cabinet wants to stop allowing taxpayer-funded scholarships for the schools. That\u2019s up to the Department of Education.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tVenture into the haunted greenhouse, if you dare.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tHer new book just dropped last month.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n This article appears in Oct. 23 \u2013 29, 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n \t
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