U.S. Supreme Court Lets Stand Wisconsin School Choice Decision

John Kramer
John Kramer · November 9, 1998

Washington, D.C.-The Institute for Justice, the Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm that is defending the constitutionality of school choice programs in six states, indicated it was not surprised that the U.S. Supreme Court decided today not to review the June ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court upholding the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

“The families who are enjoying the benefits of this wonderful program can rest a little easier,” declared Clint Bolick, litigation director of the Institute for Justice. “Three years of legal uncertainty finally are over.” The Institute, along with Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson’s office as well as Landmark Legal Foundation, successfully defended Milwaukee’s school choice program.

Still, constitutional issues remain. School choice cases are pending before state supreme courts in Vermont, Ohio, Maine, and Arizona. As in Wisconsin, the Institute for Justice is defending school choice in each state.

“School choice is the most promising education reform in America,” stated Bolick. “By declining to review the Wisconsin ruling, the Supreme Court leaves intact the most definitive court decision to date, which solidly supports the constitutionality of school choice.”

The Institute for Justice is a libertarian public interest law firm. Through strategic litigation, training, communications, and outreach, the Institute for Justice advances a rule of law under which individuals can control their own destinies as free and responsible members of society. It litigates to secure economic liberty, school choice, private property rights, freedom of speech, and other vital individual liberties, and to restore constitutional limits on the power of government. Through these activities the Institute challenges the ideology of the welfare state and illustrates and extends the benefits of freedom to those whose full enjoyment of liberty is denied by government. The Institute was founded in September 1991 by William Mellor and Clint Bolick.