ADF attorneys file brief to defend school choice for Arizona families
ACLU continues attack on corporate tax credit tuition programPHOENIX — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday with the Arizona Court of Appeals to defend the state’s corporate tax credit tuition program on behalf of School Choice Arizona, a non-profit student tuition organization. Earlier this year, an Arizona trial court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and its allies seeking to declare the tax credit program unconstitutional.
“Parents should be able to choose the right school for their children. The ACLU frequently claims to stand for ‘choice,’ but not when it comes to this,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “This program gives Arizonans a broad range of educational choices. To block those choices simply because the program allows religious and secular schools to participate equally is nothing short of discrimination.”
The ACLU and its allies filed suit to stop the state program for corporate taxpayers because it allows tuition scholarships to be used at private religious schools. An Arizona trial court dismissed the case in March, following an earlier Arizona Supreme Court decision which found that donations made by individuals to non-profit student tuition organizations did not violate the so-called “separation of church and state.”
“The ruling issued by the trial court was clear: The tax credit program is constitutional and does not violate the law,” McCaleb said.
School Choice Arizona attempted to intervene in the case Green v. Garriott in July (www.telladf.org/news/story.aspx?cid=4173). The court denied that request but allowed the student tuition organization to file a friend-of-the-court brief. The brief can be read at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/SCAamicus.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation. ADF President Alan Sears is co-author with Craig Osten of the book The ACLU vs. America (www.acluvsamerica.com).
