FARGO, N.D.—Today the Institute for Justice (IJ) and Capstone Classical Academy filed a federal lawsuit challenging a North Dakota law that makes it nearly impossible for private schools to hire the qualified teachers they want. North Dakota is one of only two states that require every private school teacher—no matter their education, expertise, or experience—to first obtain a state teaching license. Worse, the state then picks and chooses which courses a licensed teacher is allowed to teach. The result is absurd: a professor with a Ph.D. in history cannot teach history to eighth graders, and a practicing scientist cannot teach science, unless they first complete a licensure program designed for newly minted teachers.

Press Conference

IJ and Capstone will host a Zoom-based Press Conference to discuss the lawsuit. The press conference will be recorded. Reporters are invited to ask questions.
When: Wednesday, June 10, 2026 at 11:00a.m. CDT
Where: Zoom Webinar (https://ij-org.zoom.us/j/98456198522)

Now, joined by one of its teachers and a parent, Capstone argues the law violates a century-old constitutional promise that the government cannot force private schools to look like public ones.

“North Dakota has decided that a license matters more than a teacher actually having expertise in what they are teaching,” said Michael Bindas, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice. “Private schools across the state are turning away Ph.D.s, working professionals, and accomplished educators from other states because none of them happen to hold North Dakota’s particular paper credential. That isn’t a recipe for quality—it’s a barrier to it, especially in a state that is already finding it hard to attract and keep great teachers. The U.S. Constitution does not let the government tell a private school that real expertise doesn’t count.”

When Capstone Classical Academy opened in Fargo in 2022, its mission was straightforward: offer families a classical education and hire the best teachers it could find. For three years it did exactly that. Then, in 2025, the state came calling and ordered the school to bring every teacher into compliance with North Dakota’s licensing rules. Over the following year, at significant expense, Capstone navigated the paperwork, kept job postings open for positions already filled by excellent teachers, and reshaped its courses to fit state-approved categories—all to satisfy a system that prefers a licensed teacher to a qualified one. 

Now, after years of frustration, Capstone—along with IJ—is setting out to do something to fix this.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court, argues that North Dakota’s licensing regime violates the constitutional liberty of private schools and teachers to offer an education different from the government’s and of families to choose it, rights recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court for more than a century. The lawsuit also argues that the licensing requirements deny private schools, their teachers, and families the equal protection of the law: While North Dakota saddles private schools with onerous and invasive licensing requirements, it lets parents educate their children at home using instructors with no license, no degree, and no state approval at all. The state cannot plausibly explain why the need for licensing turns on whether instruction is provided in the classroom or in the living room.

“We founded Capstone because we believed North Dakota families deserved a real choice—a school with its own character, its own values, and its own way of teaching,” said Ron Robson, board president and a founding member of Capstone Classical Academy. “You cannot build a school like that if the government decides, one teacher at a time, who is allowed in the classroom. This lawsuit is about finishing what we started: the freedom to be genuinely different.”

“The law here could not be clearer,” said Riley Grace Borden, a litigation fellow at the Institute for Justice. “For a hundred years the Supreme Court has said the government cannot standardize the country’s schoolchildren, and that is precisely what North Dakota is trying to do. We are confident the courts will see this case for what it is.”

Since its founding in 1991, the Institute for Justice has fought to tear down irrational licensing barriers that keep qualified people from earning an honest living—and to defend the right of families and schools to find the education that fits their children, rather than the one-size-fits-all model the government prefers. This case unites both missions.