Washington, D.C., Aug. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — As parents in Lincoln, Nebraska send their children back to school today, the New Civil Liberties Alliance is filing the Jacobsen v. Spellerberg lawsuit on behalf of two families in the District Court of Lancaster County, challenging the state’s K-12 education system’s unconstitutional abridgement of parents’ free-speech rights.
Education is speech. The curriculum taught, the books assigned, and the values reinforced inside (and outside) of the classroom all convey a message. The Constitution has long recognized that parents—not the government—hold the paramount right to direct that message for their own children.
Parents also have a legal duty to provide or arrange for educational speech. Nebraska requires parents to educate their school-aged children under threat of criminal penalties. Yet the state supplies an education only if parents enroll children in public schools and accept the government’s messaging, even when such messages contradict the parents’ values. Indeed, Nebraska ranks among the worst states in the nation for parental choice.
The lawsuit leaves to the Nebraska legislature (or the municipal Defendants) the responsibility to adopt an educational system that resolves the current constitutional violations. Plaintiffs do not seek to end, defund, or influence public schools. They seek only a level playing field for their educational speech. The lawsuit also does not challenge the content of any specific public-school curriculum or seek to force public schools to teach—or not teach—any particular viewpoint. Rather, Plaintiffs wish only to halt the government’s abridgement of their First Amendment rights to educational speech.
Nebraska’s scheme flips free speech on its head, mandating educational speech then penalizing viewpoints other than the government’s: parents who wish to exercise their right, whether by homeschooling or by choosing a private school, must forgo tens of thousands of dollars of educational benefits available to other families who acquiesce to the government’s viewpoints. That is textbook viewpoint discrimination and an unconstitutional condition on a public benefit.
The Plaintiffs know this dilemma firsthand. Both families previously enrolled their older children in Lincoln Public Schools before withdrawing them to educate them according to their own values. Now they pay the penalty Nebraska imposes for making that choice. The cost of that penalty is steep. A full private-school education in Nebraska can cost a family more than $100,000 through high school, and even homeschooling carries substantial direct costs plus the lost income of a parent who must remain home to teach.
NCLA asks the Court to declare this scheme unconstitutional, enjoin Defendants from continuing to condition educational benefits on parents’ silence, and award damages to the Plaintiffs from the municipal Defendants for so long as the unconstitutional system continues to harm their families.
NCLA released the following statements:
“That formal education is speech is largely undisputable. That parents have the primary right to provide educational speech to their children is legally established. Courts have long recognized speech rights in the education context. Protecting parents’ educational speech is the next logical step.”
— Zhonette Brown, General Counsel and Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“The unconstitutional conditions doctrine exists to stop the government from doing indirectly what it cannot do directly. Nebraska cannot ban parents from teaching their own children their own values—so instead it penalizes them for exercising that recognized right. But the Constitution does not tolerate that abridgement of parents’ free-speech rights.”
— Christian Clase, Litigation Counsel, NCLA
“Nebraska cannot constitutionally pressure parents to give up their freedom of educational speech. 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.”
— Philip Hamburger, Founder and CEO, NCLA
For more information, visit the case page here. Here is a 90-second video of NCLA attorney Zhonette Brown providing a case overview.
ABOUT NCLA
NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.
Joe Martyak New Civil Liberties Alliance 703-403-1111 joe.martyak@ncla.legal
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