Town officials in Dexter, Maine are considering a proposal that bars homeschool co-op leaders and private-school employees from serving on the local school board. Supporters of the ordinance claim it prevents conflicts of interest. In reality, the ordinance is retaliatory, and risks targeting many others and dividing the community.
In June, Dexter voters recalled school board member Alisha Ames, leader of the town’s only homeschool co-op, Power Source Ministries. The recall came after a campaign by the Facebook group “Stop the Power Trip,” which accused her of putting the co-op ahead of public schools. Even if the recall of Ames was warranted, the proposed ordinance goes much further. Instead of addressing one individual, it would bar homeschool co-op leaders and private-school employees from serving on the school board, shutting out many other residents from their right to serve their community.
State Rep. Heidi Sampson, director of the Maine Education Initiative, warned in a letter to the Town Council that the measure “fails First Amendment scrutiny and exposes the town to significant liability.” She urged Dexter to reject it and “support the right of all Dexter citizens to serve their local public schools.”
The ordinance is overly broad, sweeping in not just paid employees but also volunteers, former leaders, and even homeschooling parents who work together. The ordinance is excessively broad. It defines a co-op as any “organized group of parents or guardians who collaborate to provide educational instruction or services to children who are being educated at home.” By excluding homeschool and private school involvement, the ordinance assumes that those individuals cannot have the best interests of public schools at heart. As Sampson puts it, that assumption is “baseless and narrow-minded.”
This ordinance punishes parents and educators simply for choosing how to educate their children or for being affiliated with private schools, even though both parents and educators have constitutional rights to do so. The government cannot strip someone of the right to run for office just because it disagrees with how they exercise those fundamental freedoms.
A similar dynamic happened in Lakeway, Texas. A group of golfers used restrictive zoning laws to their advantage to try to shut down single mother Bianca King’s home day care. The golfers didn’t like that they had to see toys and hear children playing when they golfed behind Bianca’s house. The golfers’ complaints had nothing to do with harm or safety.
Bianca teamed up with the Institute for Justice, which defends everyday Americans, to challenge Lakeway’s unconstitutional actions—and she won. After months of hearings, the City Council finally allowed Bianca to keep operating her home day care. The decision was a win for her and for the principle that government cannot use sweeping rules to silence people it disfavors.
Both Dexter and Lakeway show how the government can use laws to go after people it didn’t like. Dexter should think carefully before adopting a vague rule that singles out members of its own community. Laws exist to serve legitimate public purposes, not private preferences.