{"id":377622,"date":"2026-07-18T03:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377622\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T03:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T03:35:08","slug":"how-a-man-once-ordered-to-pay-libel-damages-helped-launch-an-investigation-into-islamic-private-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/377622\/","title":{"rendered":"How a man once ordered to pay libel damages helped launch an investigation into Islamic private schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica\u2019s Big Story newsletter<\/a> to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cconvicted terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Westrop eventually admitted the underlying evidence for the claim was not reliable, according to court filings, and corrected the story on his website.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere simply was no evidence to support the allegation of terrorism,\u201d the judge in the case wrote.<\/p>\n

Years after that ruling, Westrop made similar claims about a group of Islamic private schools in Texas that had applied to the state\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

In December, acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock asked the state\u2019s top lawyer<\/a> if the agency could exclude from the voucher program an unnamed number of schools with supposed ties to the Chinese Communist government or that had hosted events for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil-rights group<\/a>. A month later, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton<\/a> ruled that it could<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Westrop\u2019s allegations, along with claims made by several others, were among the primary reasons the comptroller\u2019s office investigated the schools and delayed their admittance in the voucher program, according to new legal filings.<\/p>\n

The scope of the investigations was also far broader than what was previously known, the filings show. The state used taxpayer money to contract with two investigators to dig into the histories of nearly 50 private schools across the state with alleged ties to radical Islamic organizations and the Chinese government \u2014 a number that far exceeds what has been reported.<\/p>\n

The extent of the state\u2019s probe and Westrop\u2019s 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\u2019s chief counsel for general litigation, taken in May as part of the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t discriminate against certain private schools in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cReligious liberty is not a temporary pass issued after a lawsuit,\u201d said Eric Hudson, an attorney representing the Islamic schools. \u201cWe\u2019re pressing on so equal treatment is the rule \u2014 not an exception granted under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comptroller\u2019s office has objected to certifying the lawsuit as a class action, saying it shouldn\u2019t be allowed to continue since the four Islamic campuses were ultimately allowed into the voucher program. The state\u2019s lawyers also maintain that a class-action claim is outside the jurisdiction of the current court and case.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaintiffs received not only the initial approval they sought, but also the continuing ability to participate in the Program on the same footing as all other approved providers and families,\u201d the state\u2019s June 26 filing said.<\/p>\n

The debate over whether to allow the schools into the voucher program has come amid a wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric among some elected officials and prominent political candidates in Texas and across the country. At the state Republican Party convention<\/a> last month, members tried to remove Muslims as delegates. Dr. Rick Scarborough, a former Southern Baptist pastor, told a Muslim attendee he wanted him to leave the event. (Scarborough later clarified to The Texas Tribune he wanted him to leave the country and admitted he had some regrets about the interaction.) In November, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott<\/a> designated CAIR a foreign terrorist organization<\/a>. Florida\u2019s governor soon followed with his own accusations. CAIR is part of a lawsuit against Abbott and Paxton challenging the enforcement of the governor\u2019s designation, saying he issued it \u201cwithout due process and in violation of federal law.\u201d The case is ongoing.<\/p>\n

In the months since the Islamic schools\u2019 lawsuit was filed, the comptroller\u2019s office has maintained that its leaders did not purposefully single out certain schools. Instead, agency officials said that the Islamic schools were swept up in a wider review of some 700 private schools that were accredited by Cognia, a nonprofit that vets tens of thousands of schools worldwide. The agency has said it did not know which schools had Islamic connections but instead set aside the entire group after discovering not all had up-to-date accreditations, which are mandated to qualify for the Texas voucher program. Cognia could not be immediately reached for comment.<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s deposition, however, contradicts the state\u2019s claim.<\/p>\n

In the deposition, Miller said the agency began receiving information as far back as last summer that identified almost 50 schools with alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party or extremist groups. He also confirmed that the third-party researchers hired by the comptroller only examined those particular campuses out of the more than 2,600 private schools now approved<\/a> for the voucher program.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s deposition cited a range of sources that prompted the comptroller\u2019s investigations into the schools, including Westrop, a regional Homeland Security Task Force<\/a> launched last summer to \u201ccombat emerging threats from transnational criminal organizations in Southeast Texas,\u201d congressional hearings probing potential terrorist activities in Texas and the RAIR Foundation, an activist and investigative journalism organization combating \u201cthe threats from Islamic supremacists, radical leftists and their allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller spoke with Westrop on the phone at one point this year. He told lawyers Westrop appeared credible.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you Google Mr. Westrop?\u201d Hudson asked during the May deposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not Google, no,\u201d said Miller, who added that the investigators the state hired confirmed his credentials.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid they make you aware of a defamation judgment against him for falsely accusing someone of being a terrorist?\u201d Hudson asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, they did not,\u201d Miller replied.<\/p>\n

Westrop, who could not be reached for comment, was hired this year by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, an influential conservative think tank based in Austin. He has continued raising allegations on at least one podcast<\/a> that extremist groups will take advantage of the school voucher program funding.<\/p>\n

Westrop later published his research, which he had shared with the comptroller, on Middle East Forum<\/a>, a website founded in 1994 that \u201cpromotes American interests in the Middle East and protects the West from Middle Eastern threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said in his deposition that the comptroller\u2019s office is \u201cnot readily prepared to do investigations and to do deep research into foreign terrorist organizations or any other accusation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comptroller, instead, handed over the list of accused schools provided by Westrop and others to two third-party counterterrorism researchers, Reuben Katz and Lara Burns, a retired FBI agent who now works with George Washington University\u2019s Program on Extremism.<\/p>\n

Katz and Burns, who could not immediately be reached for comment, provided the agency with dossiers on each school. Their research included cross-referencing accused school leaders against government terrorism and extremist group databases.<\/p>\n

The comptroller ultimately allowed in all of the schools alleged to have Islamic terrorist or Chinese Communist Party ties.<\/p>\n

The Islamic school plaintiffs have said their inclusion in the program is still not guaranteed long term and they hope a class-action suit could help change the comptroller\u2019s processes that allowed the agency to delay their admission in the first place.<\/p>\n

The filing pointed to a March 24 letter Hancock sent the state attorney general<\/a>, in which he continued pushing claims linking the Houston Quran Academy\u2019s principal to the Muslim Brotherhood. In the letter, he says the school had been \u201ctemporarily\u201d approved for the voucher program but called for its removal. (The school could not be immediately reached for comment; the Houston Chronicle previously reported<\/a> that Principal Hamed Ghazali said the school has no ties to CAIR and is \u201cpurely academic.\u201d) Hancock asked Paxton, whom the comptroller had been feuding with over the attorney general\u2019s legal strategy in the investigation, to highlight what he called the school\u2019s \u201cterror ties.\u201d He urged the attorney general to strip the school, \u201cand any other school with documented ties to terrorism,\u201d of its corporate charter. (Hancock has since announced<\/a> he will step down from his position as acting comptroller at the end of this month.)<\/p>\n

Of Hancock\u2019s comments, Miller said in his deposition, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of mistakes and misstatements in this particular letter, but again, I\u2019m not the acting comptroller.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe,\u201d Miller said, had determined the accusations of terrorist ties were not accurate. \u201cThis letter came completely out of the blue, and \u2014 and so this was a surprise to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

An attorney for the plaintiffs asked whether the comptroller has the authority to remove a school from the approved list, overriding the agency\u2019s own internal research. Miller opposed the notion multiple times before conceding at one point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible, yes,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n

Misty Harris<\/a> contributed research. Vianna Davila<\/a> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts and Texas Public Policy Foundation have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is co-published with ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for ProPublica\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30485,815,11672,287,1563,27,2794,29,293,28,37931],"class_list":["post-377622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-council-on-american-islamic-relations","tag-courts","tag-islam","tag-politics","tag-public-education","tag-texas","tag-texas-comptroller-of-public-accounts","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-private-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}