Another brief in the Arizona school-choice case

Like Tom Berg, I am filing an amicus brief in Winn (the Arizona school-choice case).  My brief, co-authored with Jack Coons, is being filed on behalf of the American Center for School Choice (with which our own Patrick Brennan is also involved).  Here is the gist:   

This case implicates – and this Court should vindicate – two foundational and animating principles of our Constitution and tradition:  First, as was emphasized long ago in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, parents enjoy the “liberty . . . to direct the upbringing and education” of their children.  268 U.S. 510, 534.  After all, “[t]he child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”  Id. at 535.  Arizona’s tax-credit program helps to make this promised right a meaningful reality for thousands of parents.

 

Second, and relatedly, this Court reminded the country in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education that “it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education[.]”  347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954).  See also Zelman, 536 U.S. at 680 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“[W]ithout education one can hardly exercise the civic, political, and personal freedoms conferred by the Fourteenth Amendment.”).  Policy initiatives like Arizona’s bring this opportunity closer to thousands of children for whom it would otherwise, unfortunately, be out of reach. . . .

 

Parental choice in education, which the Arizona tax-credit program helps to promote, is constitutional, sensible, and just.  What’s more, it is essential to achieving equality of opportunity for American children, rich or poor.  School choice treats the poor as citizens of equal dignity; it promotes the independence upon which constitutional government depends; and it empowers parents to transmit their values to their children.  Because the decision below is inconsistent both with this Court’s controlling Establishment Clause precedents and with fundamental values that have long animated our traditions, it should be reversed.