A lot of state programs offer standard levels of aid and help to students depending on their needs.
It is in Massachusetts that the state routinely allows children to receive special education services, those programs and benefits to which they are statutorily entitled. But not if they go to private schools.
“The question of whether the government can deny a benefit to a child because of her parents’ exercise of a constitutional right is profoundly important,” said Institute for Justice lawyer David Hodges. “We are deeply grateful to all the amici who lent their time, talent, and support to the Hellmans and Harrisons.”
It actually is a 14-state coalition led by South Carolina and West Virginia that argued: “Massachusetts is not merely declining to extend services, it is actively weaponizing a child’s guaranteed entitlement—again, supported by their family’s own tax dollars—as leverage to coerce the family back into public school. The regulation creates a penalty for exercising a constitutional right, converting what should be a child-centered benefit into a tool of institutional control.”
Among those working on the case are ExcelinEd, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and the New Civil Liberties Alliance. The coalition filed briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court urging the court to grant a petition asking whether the government can withhold aid from children simply because their parents exercised a constitutional right.
The fight is on behalf of Massachusetts parents Ariella and David Hellman and Josh Harrison and Miriam Segura-Harrison. They are contesting a state regulation that bars children from receiving special education services at the private schools their parents chose for them—services the children are otherwise statutorily entitled to receive.
The families are represented by the Institute for Justice and the Pioneer New England Legal Foundation, groups that have petitioned the Supreme Court for review.
There already are seven amicus briefs that reflect the widespread interest in the case from states, educators, civil rights groups, children’s advocates, and more.
ExcelinEd, an education policy organization founded by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, noted: “For over a century, this court has protected the right of parents to direct their children’s education. And there is increasing enthusiasm among state legislatures to support parental choice, including by expanding support for private education. But opponents of educational freedom continue to invoke state constitutional provisions to ‘forc[e] [children] to accept instruction from public teachers.’”
Charles Glenn, professor emeritus of educational leadership and policy at Boston University who, while previously acting as the director of urban education and equity efforts for the Massachusetts Department of Education, spearheaded the desegregation of Boston Public Schools wrote: “The [Massachusetts] Anti-Aid Amendment is cut from the same cloth as the laws this Court addressed in Pierce and Meyer. In those cases, this Court vindicated the right of parents to choose the schooling consistent with their hopes for their children. To the extent the Anti Aid Amendment likewise places impermissible conditions on that right, it is unconstitutional.”
