ACLJ Defends Wyoming Families' Right to Choose: School Choice Under Attack

The ACLJ has filed a critical amicus brief at the Wyoming Supreme Court defending the fundamental right of parents to direct their children’s education – and to use their own tax dollars to do it. This case represents yet another front in the ACLJ’s ongoing battle to protect parental rights and school choice across America.

At stake is Wyoming’s Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act, which created an Education Savings Account (ESA) program allowing families to access state funds for educational options beyond traditional public schools. Just three months after the program launched, a group including a teachers’ union and parents whose children attend public schools – and who have no intention of using ESAs – filed suit to shut it down. A district court granted their request, issuing an injunction, blocking nearly 4,000 families from accessing funds they desperately need.

Take action with us and add your name to the petition: Demand School Choice – Give Every Child Equality of Opportunity.

Real Families, Real Harm

The injunction has devastated real families. Our brief told the stories of those impacted. Consider April, a Wyoming mother of five whose oldest son endured relentless bullying in public school because of his ADHD. He was told daily that he was worthless and should take his own life. After he became suicidal and required hospitalization, his parents withdrew him from school. All of her children now thrive at a Christian school, but the family had to take out a second mortgage just to afford tuition, which amounts to over 30% of their income.

Or consider J.L., a public school teacher whose children recently transferred to a private Christian school after witnessing fights and disruptive behavior in their public school. Since the injunction blocked ESA funding days before school started, she and her husband have redirected all their bonuses toward tuition and taken on overtime hours just to keep their children enrolled.

These aren’t wealthy families gaming the system. They’re working parents whose children needed educational environments that public schools couldn’t provide – and the district court’s order stripped them of that opportunity.

Two Constitutional Errors

The Wyoming district court made two fundamental legal mistakes. First, it interpreted the state constitution to require religious discrimination – excluding religious schools from the ESA program. But as the Supreme Court has definitively held in cases like Espinoza v. Montana and Carson v. Makin (both cases in which the ACLJ filed an amicus brief), states cannot exclude religious schools from generally available benefit programs. That’s not neutrality – it’s hostility to religion, and the Free Exercise Clause forbids it.

Second, the court applied “strict scrutiny” reserved for challenges to public school funding, even though the ESA program uses separate general fund appropriations – not public school dollars. No public school loses funding. No student loses access to public education. The ESA program simply expands options for families who need them.

Quality Education in Action

The district court worried that ESA students might not receive a “quality education” outside absolute state control. But the evidence proves otherwise. Research shows school choice programs improve educational outcomes for all students. Competition encourages excellence across the board.

More importantly, the families themselves tell a different story. After struggling in public school, children like our client – who suffered death threats from bullies – are thriving at schools that meet their needs. Students with dyslexia who couldn’t get specialized support in public schools are now excelling with evidence-based interventions. Children with anxiety who felt invisible in large classrooms now attend schools where teachers know their names and care about their well-being.

These parents are just asking for an equal opportunity for their children to receive the education they need.

The ACLJ’s Nationwide Fight for Parental Rights and School Choice

This Wyoming case is part of the ACLJ’s broader commitment to defending parental rights in education and school choice. Just months ago, the Supreme Court delivered a resounding victory in Mahmoud v. Taylor, recognizing parents’ constitutional right to shield their children from government instruction that conflicts with their religious beliefs. The ACLJ filed a crucial amicus brief that the Court relied upon in its opinion in this case.

In Nevada, we secured a settlement after a 15-year-old student was forced to perform a pornographic monologue in theater class. In Ohio and New Jersey, we are fighting multiple school districts that are violating state law by refusing to provide transportation assistance to public and private schools.

The pattern is clear: Educational bureaucracies and teachers’ unions will use every tool available to maintain their monopoly over children’s education – even when it means defying state law and trampling parental rights. Join the ACLJ in defending school choice: Sign our petition today.

The ACLJ will continue fighting for these families at the Wyoming Supreme Court and for parental rights nationwide. The Wyoming case represents a critical battleground in the national movement for educational freedom. From New Jersey to Nevada to Ohio, the ACLJ is defending parental rights against government overreach and union obstruction. The Supreme Court has made clear that religious discrimination has no place in educational programs, and we won’t stop fighting until every state respects that principle.