Florida officials eye vouchers to schools accused of teaching Sharia law
Tampa Bay Times | Jeffrey S. Solochek | October 28, 2025
The big story: Islamic schools have a long history of participating in Florida’s education voucher system.
For years, they’ve been had some of the largest numbers of students receiving the state-subsidized financial assistance. Their involvement in the program has gone largely unmentioned, though, even as state lawmakers advanced legislation aimed at banning Shari’a law nearly 15 years ago.
That was then.
On Monday, on the heels of a revived legislative focus on Shari’a law, state government leaders turned their attention to the Islamic schools and vouchers.
“As Senate President, universal school choice was one of my top legislative priorities. Schools that indoctrinate Sharia law should not be a part of our taxpayer-funded school voucher program,” Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson wrote on X.
Attorney General James Uthmeier also weighed in: “Sharia law seeks to destroy and supplant the pillars of our republican form of government and is incompatible with the Western tradition. The use of taxpayer-funded school vouchers to promote Sharia law likely contravenes Florida law and undermines our national security.”
They were reacting to a lengthy post by social media influencer Amy Mekelburg, who declared “FLORIDA IS FUNDING A PARALLEL ISLAMIC SYSTEM.” Referring to the state as “Florabia,” Mekelburg wrote that school choice has been compromised, with Islamic schools “publicly boasting that voucher money is attracting Muslims from across the country to relocate here — because the state will pay to educate their children inside Sharia-run institutions.”
On their websites, the schools discuss teaching Islamic values, but do not mention Shari’a law. The posts contend that it’s happening nonetheless.
Mekelburg, who has been criticized as anti-Muslim over the years, also has involved herself in bashing New York City Democratic socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani — a target of Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republicans. She recently called Mamdani a “jihadi-Marxist political asset.”
The closest similar scenario to play out in Florida came last year, when some Jewish lawmakers sought to stop an Islamic school in North Miami from receiving vouchers because of comments made by the school’s founder.
