Massachusetts Families Draw Broad National Support in Supreme Court Bid Over Special Education Rights

Pioneer New England Legal Foundation Joins Institute for Justice as Commonwealth Faces September 21st Deadline

BOSTON: In a significant move, the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Massachusetts to respond to a case challenging a state rule that blocks children with disabilities from getting special education services at the private schools their parents chose for them.

The case, Hellman v. Craven, was brought on behalf of Massachusetts parents Ariella and David Hellman and Josh Harrison and Miriam Segura-Harrison by the Institute for Justice (IJ), with the Pioneer New England Legal Foundation (Legal Foundation) serving as consulting counsel. The petition names Katherine Craven, Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, as respondent. Under state law, Attorney General Andrea Campbell represents Craven and the Board in their official capacities as state officials sued in the course of their public duties.

At the heart of the case is a Massachusetts regulation that bars children with disabilities from receiving legally required special education services at the private schools their parents chose for them, forcing them instead to leave school during the day to receive those services elsewhere. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld the regulation, prompting the petition asking the Supreme Court for relief. Demonstrating the importance of the case, seven amicus briefs were filed by fourteen attorneys general; civil rights, education, and religious groups; and a leading scholar from Boston University,at a stage when most such petitions receive none.

“Massachusetts guarantees special education services to all children. State regulators should not undermine that guarantee simply because parents exercise a constitutional right,” said Frank J. Bailey, President of the Pioneer New England Legal Foundation. “Special needs services should not be dictated by wealth, religion, or creed. We are heartened at the outpouring of support and compassion we are seeing across the nation for our clients.”

The caliber of the briefs is meritorious; one brief came from a coalition of fourteen states representing nearly 100 million Americans. Five of the seven briefs were authored by former law clerks to the Justices. All send a powerful signal that the petition should be taken seriously.

The seven amicus briefs include:

• A coalition of fourteen state Attorneys General, led by South Carolina and West Virginia, together representing nearly 100 million Americans
• The Alliance Defending Freedom (Washington, D.C.)
• ExcelinEd, the Foundation for Excellence in Education (Tallahassee, FL), founded by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush
• The New Civil Liberties Alliance (Arlington, VA)
• The Council for American Private Education (Washington, D.C.) and Agudath Israel of America (New York, NY), on a joint brief
• The Center for the Rights of Abused Children (Phoenix, AZ)
• Professor Charles L. Glenn, professor emeritus of educational leadership and policy at Boston University and former director of urban education and equity efforts for the Massachusetts Department of Education, who led the desegregation of Boston Public Schools

These amici underscore the case’s broader constitutional stakes: the right of parents to direct their children’s education, and to ensure their children are not penalized, through loss of a statutory benefit, for exercising that right. As the fourteen-state coalition wrote in its brief, the Massachusetts regulation does not merely withhold a service; it uses a child’s guaranteed entitlement as leverage to pressure families back into the public school system.

The Commonwealth is expected to file its response by September 21, with petitioners’ reply to follow two weeks later. A decision on whether the Court will take up the case could come as early as this fall, though in some cases the timeline extends into the following year.

A link to all briefs is available on the Supreme Court’s docket at: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/26-97.html

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About the Pioneer New England Legal Foundation: The Legal Foundation is a national, nonpartisan think tank that defends and promotes educational options, accountable government, and economic opportunity. The Legal Foundation pursues its mission through legal research, amicus briefs, and litigation, and serves as consulting counsel in Hellman v. Craven.

About the Institute for Justice: IJ is the nation’s leading law firm defending educational choice programs and expanding educational access and opportunity. Since its founding in 1991, IJ has represented parents in educational choice lawsuits in numerous state supreme courts, intermediate courts of appeal, and trial courts, as well as four times before the U.S. Supreme Court (Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, Carson v. Makin). IJ serves as lead counsel in this case.

Media Contact:
Philip Suderman, IJ
psuderman@ij.org