On June 30, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decided one of the most important education reform cases in the past half-century. This landmark case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, held that the U.S. Constitution does not allow states to discriminate against religious parents or schools if policymakers choose to enact a private educational choice program to empower parents to choose the educational environment best suited to their own children. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that while a “State need not subsidize private education[,] . . . once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.” The Court had already ruled in 2002, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (another IJ case), that allowing such options is permissible under the federal Constitution.
A video news release about this case in which the Montana school choice moms and their attorneys from the Institute for Justice discuss this case and its importance is available here.
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