On February 6, the Mississippi Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Parents for Public Schools v. Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration. The Liberty Justice Center will argue on behalf of the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools (MAIS), a group representing 125 schools which provide private education to over 45,000 Mississippi students.
In this hearing, Senior Counsel Buck Dougherty will urge the Court to reverse a lower court’s decision and allow MAIS to intervene in the case as a defendant to protect its member schools’ interest in $10 million appropriated by the legislature for independent schools.
The lower court denied MAIS the right to intervene to present its defense against a lawsuit, which relies on Section 208 of the Mississippi constitution to prevent MAIS’s independent schools from accessing federal COVID relief funds. The Liberty Justice Center argues that Section 208 violates the U.S. Constitution because it is a Blaine Amendment—a post-Civil War provision designed to discriminate against racial and religious minorities and the independent schools that dared to teach immigrants and newly freed slaves to read and write.
WHO: Buck Dougherty, Senior Counsel for the Liberty Justice Center
WHEN: 1:30 p.m. CST, Tuesday, February 6, 2024
WHERE: Mississippi Supreme Court
450 High Street
Jackson, MS 39201
HOW: The hearing will be livestreamed on the Mississippi Supreme Court’s website here.
ISSUE BACKGROUND: In June 2022, a group of petitioners sued to prevent independent schools in Mississippi from accessing $10 million in federal relief funds that had been set aside for their use by the Mississippi Legislature. The lawsuit relies on Section 208 of the Mississippi constitution—an 1890 provision that the Liberty Justice Center argues is a post-Civil War Blaine Amendment, designed to discriminate against racial and religious minorities and the schools serving their communities.
The Liberty Justice Center represents the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools (MAIS), which seeks to intervene in the case as a defendant on behalf of its member schools.
The Liberty Justice Center’s case filings in Parents for Public Schools v. Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration are available here.