Derek Black: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Espinoza Decision
Derek Black is a law professor at the University of South Carolina who specializes in education, civil rights, and equity. His new book, which I have read and intend to review here, is Schoolhouse Burning. It is phenomenal. It is a new history of American education that documents the historic role of public education in our democracy from the Founding Fathers to the recent past.
Black writes:
Through a political lens, the Supreme Court decision in Espinoza v. Montana requiring the state to include religious schools in its voucher program makes perfect sense. Conservatives have long decried the fact they must foot tuition at their private religious schools while other students receive free education at public schools. Today they got their shot at fixing that.
But through a constitutional lens, the decision can be confusing to all but the constitutional experts.
First is the question of “mootness.” The dissent argues that the case should never have been decided at all because Montana’s voucher program is no longer in operation, but the majority decided the case anyway, reasoning that but for a flaw— the lower court’s flaw in striking the entire program down—the program would be operating to exclude religious groups.
With that out of the way, the majority hinges its opinion on CONTINUE READING: Derek Black: Untangling the Supreme Court’s Espinoza Decision | Diane Ravitch's blog
Steve Hinnefeld: The Supreme Court’s Mistaken View of American History in the Espinoza Decision | Diane Ravitch's blog - https://wp.me/p2odLa-qWw via @dianeravitch
