Posted by Howard Richman on August 27 2009 at 13:09:05:
In Reply to: Following their loss in Federal Court, HSLDA suit resumes in state courts posted by Howard Richman on August 26 2009 at 21:07:34:
In the above posting I wrote that I hadn´t yet heard about HSLDA´s planned appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court of their lost Civil Rights suit. Well, I just looked it up. Turns out that HSLDA filed the appeal on 11/29/2008 and that the US Supreme Court declined to hear the case on 1/26/2009. That suit is now dead.
Theirs was the second Civil Rights Suit against the home school law that failed. Both went all the way through the appeals process, but lost at every step. I wrote the following about the first suit in the Summer 2004 issue of the PA Homeschoolers newsletter:
[The HSLDA suit] is not the first time that a court suit has charged that enforcing Pennsylvania´s home education law violates the United States Constitution. There was a similar court case, from 1995 to 1998, Lawvere v. East Lycoming School District, in which a Pennsylvania homeschooling family refused to fill out a home education affidavit and then fended off prosecution by filing a Civil Rights suit against their school district in Federal Court.
While the current suits only charge that the home education law violates two amendments (the First and Fourteenth) to the United States Constitution, that suit charged violations of four (the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth) amendments.
Representing themselves, the family first lost in the Middle District Federal Court before Judge Malcolm Muir. Then the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Judge Muir´s decision without comment. Then the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case.The Federal Courts decided that enforcing Pennsylvania´s home education law does not violate the United States Constitution.
Although both the current suits and the failed suit have similar claims, there is one huge difference. Instead of representing themselves, the homeschoolers in the current suit will be represented by the excellent lawyers of the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Howard