Nebraska lawsuit: Public education uses financial pressure to curtail parental rights

A civil rights group has filed a First Amendment lawsuit in Nebraska, challenging the premises of the modern, government-run education system.

Two Nebraska families, represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), are suing various state and education officials, arguing their First Amendment rights as parents are being violated.

The suit, filed Aug. 13, concludes education is fundamentally a form of speech and the government forces parents to submit their children to government-sponsored speech unless they pay thousands of dollars for private education.

“When parents send their children to a government school, the government’s preferred speakers instruct the child using a government’s choice of curricula, standards, codes of conduct, textbooks, lessons, and other applicable resources or rules,” the lawsuit states. “The messages are chosen or influenced by state legislatures and departments of education, school boards, and other government entities or employees.”

Such instruction is not ideologically neutral, according to plaintiffs.

In their experience, Nebraska’s public schools promoted controversial subjects such as social-emotional learning, pro-LGBT ideas, narratives of racial grievance and concepts of “equitable learning” and “restorative and trauma-informed practices.”

Since parents are compelled by law to educate their children, families face significant financial pressure to submit to the government-sponsored education regime – because the only alternative is a costly private education.

“Parents who educate outside state-run institutions are denied educational benefits solely because they refuse to adopt government orthodoxies for their children,” the lawsuit continues. “In no other context does the government require one to pay to avoid repeated and prolonged submission to government orthodoxies.”

It adds while the government “may possess an interest in an educated citizenry,” it does not have a “compelling interest in government education.”

The lawsuit concludes by arguing the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights are being infringed by the perverse financial incentive forcing many families to enroll their children in government-run schools.

“Nebraska cannot constitutionally pressure parents to give up their freedom of educational speech,” said NCLA Founder and CEO Philip Hamburger. “The state presses parents to give up their own choice of educational speech and to substitute, not just government teaching, but government teachings.

“That grossly violates parents’ freedom of speech.”

“The government cannot condition a valuable public benefit on families surrendering a constitutional right,” added NCLA General Counsel Zhonette Brown.

“Nebraska may require children to receive an education, but it cannot use that requirement, and the enormous financial pressure attached to it, to steer parents toward government’s preferred speakers and viewpoints.”