The American Center for Law and Justice is representing families and students in South Carolina who contend public schools are failing them and they have a right to taxpayer funds to attend private, religious or charter schools, or to homeschool.
The legal organization announced Monday it has filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of two U.S. senators and five members of the U.S. House and "thousands of American families."
They want some of the education dollars returned to parents "in the form of vouchers or tax credits to send their children to the school of their choice."
"Parents pay taxes to support the education system, but America’s public schools are failing them – and their kids," the ACLJ said.
South Carolina Republican Gov. Henry McMaster set up a program to let families use federal funds through flexible grants to send their children to private schools. His Governor's Education Emergency Relief program set aside $32 million in emergency funding for the grants.
But a public school district and a teachers' union sued to stop the funding. The case now is now before the Supreme Court of South Carolina.
"Private schools in our state provide an essential education to over 50,000 children," the governor said. "They provide parents the ability to choose the type of education environment and instruction they feel best suits their child’s unique needs. And a large number of these students come from working or low-income families – who – in the best economy – are barely able to scrimp and scrape together just enough money to pay their child’s tuition."
The ACLJ said said it is urging the South Carolina justices to follow the lead of the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled against a ban on using tax dollars for private schools.
"As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the Court’s opinion at that time: 'When the court was called upon to apply a state law no-aid provision to exclude religious schools from the program, it was obligated by the Federal Constitution to reject the invitation.'"
The ACLJ has filed arguments at the state's high court on behalf of the state's congressional delegation, Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott, and Reps. Jeff Duncan, Joe Wilson, Ralph Norman, Tom Rice and William Timmons.
"The point we make in our brief is that Congress, in passing the CARES Act, intended flexibility in the use of these funds by governors across the country to ensure that children impacted by the coronavirus pandemic would be provided the best education possible and not be abandoned," the ACLJ said.
The filing argues the governor was "precisely within the intent of Congress" when he set up the grants.
The program makes the student the beneficiary, the brief said.
"The religion (or not) of the education related entity is irrelevant."
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