Last month, the Department of Justice asked a federal court to block the voucher program in any of Louisiana’s 22 parishes that remain under federal desegregation orders. According to the Obama administration, school vouchers “impede the desegregation process.” 91 percent of voucher program students are minority children.
However, just weeks later, four Louisiana families, as well as a network of thousands of families across the state, are fighting back. They are asking a federal district court judge to dismiss a recent challenge by the Department of Justice against the Louisiana Scholarship Program. Represented by attorneys with the Goldwater Institute, the families are also asking the court to allow them to join the state in defending the school choice program.
In a motion for intervention that was filed this week, Louisiana families as well as the Louisiana Black Alliance for Educational Options, point out that improved educational opportunities were among the chief reasons for federal desegregation actions in the first place. As the highest court declared in Brown v. Board of Education, the central concern of desegregation is educational opportunities, for “it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.”
The families are represented by Clint Bolick, Vice President of Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, and local counsel Murphy, a founder of the Institute for Justice, who served in the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division during the Reagan administration and was awarded a merit commendation for his work. He has also defended school choice programs around the country, culminating in a U.S. Supreme Court victory upholding school vouchers in Cleveland in 2002.
While the private schools in Louisiana have done a good job of shrinking the achievement gap, charter schools in New Orleans have an abysmal record overall. According to education experts, the state of Louisiana gives a failing, or near failing grade, to approximately 2/3 of the New Orleans are charter schools.
Goldwater holds that if the Department of Justice succeeds in blocking the voucher program, it could thwart voucher programs, charter school access and other school choice opportunities across the U.S.
“It is perverse that an order designed to secure educational opportunities for black children is being wielded to destroy those opportunities,” said Bolick. “We will fight vigorously to defend the right of Louisiana children to pursue high-quality educational opportunities.”