Document Type

Brief

Case Name

Derek Brown, Attorney General v. Kevin Labresh

Publication Date

1-20-2026

Abstract

No. 20250512-SC
Derek Brown, Attorney General v. Kevin Labresh

From the Argument

No one doubts the significant public interest in K-12 education. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954) (“[E]ducation is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.”). And, for centuries, the critical responsibility for educating young people has been borne in significant part by private schools. Indeed, for many decades, private schools were essentially the only source of childhood education in the United States. It is a role those schools served—and continue to serve—well. While in Utah, as elsewhere, public schools are the cornerstone of policies that promote the goal of K-12 education, private schools also have a long record of advancing that goal. The Utah Fits All Scholarship Program appropriately serves the public interest in K-12 education by expanding the menu of the publicly funded educational options available to families to include private schools and other private education services, while at the same time preserving and respecting the core role of public schools in the state’s K-12 educational system.

Comments

The Notre Dame Education Law Project seeks to enhance civil society, promote educational opportunity, and protect religious liberty by supporting educational pluralism through research, scholarship, and legal advocacy. The Education Law Project’s work focuses in particular on parental choice and faith-based schools, both domestically and abroad.

Table of Authorities includes:

Nicole Stelle Garnett, Accountability and Private School Choice (Manhattan Inst. 2021).

Nicole Stelle Garnett, Post-Accountability Accountability, 52 U. Mich. J. L. Reform 157 (2018).

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