Christian School Choice Heads to Supreme Court

This is Logan Sekulow.

Today we discuss Christian school choice as it heads to the Supreme Court. Live from Washington, D.C., Sekulow Live! Phone lines are open for your questions right now.

Call 1-800-684-3110. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. Welcome to Sekulow.

This is Logan Sekulow. Join the studio by Will Haynes as well as Than Bennett in Washington, D.C., and we'll be joined later by Rick Grenell. We have a lot to talk about today. You know, we're about a year out from our school choice initiative launch and there are things in development. There are things happening in the Supreme Court.

As we said, Christian school choice is heading to the Supreme Court and we are there as well in support of the parents and the students because right now, Will, what's happening is that the Supreme Court, they are taking a case that came in locally in Maine. Is that correct? In Maine?

Yeah, that's right. So in Maine, it's a rural state. So many school districts actually don't have a public high school. So what the state of Maine does is it gives vouchers or credits to the parents so they can send their children to the school of their choice. This can, it doesn't have to be in that district even. It can be an out-of-state school.

In our blog up at ACLJ.org, it even mentions, it could be out of the country. They can use this money to send their kids to the school of their choice. But with one caveat, it can't be what they call a sectarian school. So no religious school is allowed with this voucher program.

And we've been talking about this kind of thing again for years as ACLJ has been on the front lines supporting Christian schooling and we are still there dealing with situations like these where Christian schools are what feels like throttled, held back just because of their beliefs and just because of their faith and not just Christian schools, religious schools in general. And school choice, it's a hot button topic. We've heard from the President.

We've heard from obviously last year when we launched our whole initiative fan in Washington, DC. There's a lot that goes on. School choice is an oddly hot button issue for something that seems very common sense.

It's really gained a lot of momentum during the pandemic, Logan, and for reasons that we have stated for a long time. And look, it's parents, not the government, that should have control for directing the education of their children. Clearly, they have the most vested interest. They know their children the best. And Logan, when parents direct the education of their children, it's no doubt, no surprise, that often they will choose a religious school. Those are schools that have traditionally done very well.

And if you look across the country, Logan, this is one of the things that is the most encouraging to me. School choice is winning. All across the country from coast to coast, school choice programs are being passed in the state legislators. They are recognizing the benefit of them, and they are winning until you get to this case in Maine that you're talking about, Logan. We have to fight these challenges for the benefit of the students that are making these choices.

Yeah, absolutely. And the ACLJ is here, and we are part of our matching challenge right now just to support the work of the ACLJ, which includes our school choice initiative. You may want to say, Logan, this is the middle end of July. Why are we talking about school?

This is summertime. Hey, my kids are only three weeks away from school. I know you don't want to hear it.

I know you don't want to believe it, but it's true. In schools, you're hearing it all over the news more than maybe ever about what's going to happen this coming year and to make sure that you as a parent, you as a grandparent, or heck, even as just someone who appreciates the need for specific educational needs to be met. That is why the ACLJ, we have our school choice initiative. We've been working on it specifically for a year, but we've been working on school choice for decades. We've been working on it for religious schools for decades, and I want you to reach out to us. I want to hear from you right now. 1-800-684-3110.

If you have a question or a comment related to this, either how the ACLJ has maybe helped you in the past or could help you in the future in terms of these kinds of specific schooling issues, you have a question about school choice, you have a question in general, I want to hear from you. 1-800-684-3110. Phone lines are open for your calls. Later in the show, we're going to hear from Rick Grenell. We also have a great documentary series that is launched on YouTube, and we're going to play a segment from that or specifically on education coming up in a couple of segments.

You're going to see that as well. It's a jam-packed show, so I appreciate everyone who's been watching, everyone who's listening. If you're watching on Facebook, I encourage you to share it with your friends. If you're listening on Twitter or watching on Twitter, retweet it.

If you're on Instagram, however it is, if you're on YouTube, hit the thumbs up, click that share button. We'll be back with more on Secula. Again, 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110, because I want to hear from you on today's show. Still in the matching challenge of the ACLJ, any gift is doubled.

So a $10 gift effectively becomes 20 and so on. So go ahead and go to aclj.org and check out this new blog related to this by Walter Weber, available now on aclj.org. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that, we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes $100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support.

Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive. And that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the American Center for Law and Justice to defend the right to life. We've created a free, powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn.

It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v. Wade 40 years later, the play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life.

Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. Welcome back to Sekulow. Thanks for watching.

Thanks for listening. Again, we're talking about the school choice, not only school choice initiative, but the big news coming out of the Supreme Court this month, which is a case involving students in Maine who want to seek Christian school as one of their options in the voucher system. Again, school choice in the voucher system has been something that has been controversial in some ways over the last few years. I know there's a lot of people with a lot of thoughts and there's a lot of questions. We try to break all of those down to make it pretty easy for you. And we do that at ACLJ.org.

You should take a look at the blog series that we have on it, as well as the video series. We're going to play some of that video series in the next segment, but specifically the topic we're talking about is the fact that as Thanh said, during COVID things have changed rapidly in terms of schooling. People are realizing there needs to be adjustments and changes in schools and the ACLJ is there. But in that same situation, the Supreme Court took a case because there were laws that were seemingly need to be probably hopefully invalidated that say, hey, school choice and voucher systems are great, but Thanh cannot be used for religious schools in general. We say Christian schools is probably the majority, but we're talking about any sort of sectarian school.

Yeah, that's right, Logan. I mean, we've been advocating from a federal level for a long time for the federal government to encourage states to do exactly what they've been doing over the course of this last year. Logan, by one count, Forbes actually did an article on this, by one count, there are 13 states that have, or I'm sorry, 18 states that have enacted up to 21 new school choice programs. So they all look a little bit different, right? Some of them are vouchers, some of them are tax credits, some of them are individual student scholarships that are available. But the thing that they have in common, Logan, is that all of them give individual students and individual parents an opportunity to have an additional choice in where they send their children. And this disproportionately benefits low-income individuals, maybe students that do not have as many options as someone who is more affluent.

So we've seen that laboratory in the states work. We've seen states expand these options. Unfortunately, when some states have expanded school choice, such as in Maine, they will come with some strings attached that absolutely should not be there.

If a student wants to take advantage of a school choice program, and the parent of that student says, the best option for my student is this particular school that has a faith-based component, Logan, that should absolutely be permitted, and under the framework of the constitution, I think you could argue it should be required. And Logan, as you've talked about, this is something that ACLJ has engaged in for decades. But at this case specifically, we filed an amicus brief at the appeals level. The parents that were filing this case, they lost at the appeals level. And then we also engaged at the stage where we were asking the Supreme Court to take the case. We filed another amicus brief. So we've already filed in this specific case twice.

And we will, again, when the time comes up in the fall, we will file again, because it's an important case. These parents, they need options. Many of them, they don't have the public school to use. There just isn't in these rural counties for high school. So they want to use this money the state's providing to go to the school of their choice. And that's fine, unless it's a religious school.

And that's just where the discrimination against religious teaching and religious schools, it can't stand. And I know a lot of people are shifting and moving. I'm curious, if you're listening right now, I'm curious, having the last year, for a lot of us, your kids were either home for portions of the year, or there was different requirements or changes or Zoom school that have happened. But now we're a year out to that. How has your plans changed, or how has your educational plan changed for your kids or your grandkids?

What are you hearing people doing this year? I'm curious, actually, as a parent, what your decision making has changed and how the way you approach education as a parent has changed. Maybe you moved to homeschooling. Maybe you've moved to some of these, to a religious school. Maybe you've decided, it's like we had that where a lot of the schools in certain districts were not open, the public schools, but the private schools were still open.

So if you had a voucher, potentially you could have been still in school learning. I'm curious. I want to know what your plans are coming up, because I know a lot of people are saying, this is summertime, Logan, as I said, but no, we are only two or three weeks away from a lot of kids returning to the classroom.

And what's that going to look like? And how can we continue to protect students and their personally held religious beliefs and your personally held religious beliefs? We do that work here at the ACLJ, and we've done it for decades, as Will said.

Give me a call, 1-800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. And Logan, you bring up that this is a changing time, and we know that as Than brought up, the states are doing work to expand these type of programs, these type of credits and charter schools and things of that nature. But not everyone is necessarily on board with this.

I wanted to say this, before we play this, I know where you're going. I thought with the changing of the guard, if you will, with the Trump presidency becoming now the Biden administration, that we would have no movement potentially on school choice. But according to some of these articles I've been reading today, and you've seen me, there is movement happening, but it's not necessarily coming out of the White House. And yeah, let's take a listen to what President Biden had to say in relation to school choice.

Back when he was running. Yes. Yeah.

No privately funded charter school would receive, or private charter school receive, a penny of federal money. None. Yeah. Not a fan of school choice, Than, but it looks like that a lot of states aren't listening to Joe Biden as we've had many new programs pop up in the last year. Well, let me tell you what that's all about, Logan. That is the teacher union influence on the left in Washington, DC. It really is. Because if you go to the constituency of either major political party, Republican or Democrat, what you saw during the course of the last year is that people got a taste of school choice as states started to expand it.

And guess what, Logan? They loved it. It wasn't just Republicans that loved it.

It wasn't just Democrats that loved it. It was parents and students that love the opportunity to have greater choice in finding their education. So look, I think President Biden is out of step with his voters when it comes to his position on this, but I'll tell you who is carrying his water on this.

The United States Congress, Logan. I mean, I don't know if we want to talk about this in depth right now, but there is a move in the United States Congress right now to penalize states that expand school choice and to actually strip stimulus money from them. So look, this has always been an effort that is going to have to bubble up from the state level. That's why we started our effort there. But if you move to Washington, DC, Logan, the teachers union and the lobbies that surround this issue in Washington, DC are always going to fight against it. We're going to have to win it over their objection. Yeah.

And let's hear again from dudes. I think that is something we should dive into and specifically about the teachers. Here's, uh, here's also Joe Biden by 16, same event from then when he was running, uh, talking about, uh, teachers and supportive teachers. And look, we love teachers here. My mom was a teacher. We're surrounded by teachers. Obviously everyone loves the teachers. However, you know, as we've said, the teachers aren't there without these students and the students are really the core.

So let's hear from Joe Biden again. And I promise you, you will never find an American district President who is more teacher and more supportive of teachers than me. And when you hear that, that sounds very nice, very benign. I don't think anyone would disagree with. That's great to be supportive of teachers, but then what you're kind of alluding to and saying is what that really is, is I'm supporting the teachers unions. I'm supporting, uh, you know, things that aren't going to be, uh, supportive of the parent and the student. There's a big difference between teachers and the teachers union.

Logan, there really is. I mean, if you pull individual teachers, I think you'll find a great passion for providing quality education for students. That's what you're going to find. And with school choice, all of the empirical data shows that a student education improves your, uh, Logan, the other thing that improves guess what is teacher opportunity, because it's not like teacher jobs go away. Yes. Some of them may shift from the public sector to the private sector or to charter schools or to other forms. Uh, but Logan, the very best teachers, the ones that are pursuing quality education for students, which I agree with you, I think that's the vast majority of them opportunities for them would increase as well.

Yeah. And I think there's a lot of pushback on that again, just because of the way it's framed, but when you look at it, it's good for everybody. Well, and just the phrasing of teacher centric education should be student centric.

The teachers, I think most teachers would agree it should be student centric, not teacher centric. So just using that word saying I'm very supportive. I'd hope so. I would hope so. And the unions probably would not agree. I mean, I've certainly met with some that don't feel that way. You know, I have had those situations with teachers. I think we've had them before where, again, I'm very, obviously we're very pro teacher. Most teachers would feel that way that you do feel like they feel at a greater superiority to the student that they are teaching.

And yes, obviously they are in terms of where they stay in, but when in terms of who's getting the benefit of the job, really, it should be the student. And look, you can go into a lot of different reasons why, but I would hope that you're right. Let's uh, well, we only got a minute. We're not going to take a phone call. Maybe we'll take phone call in a couple of segments.

We got a lot of calls coming in 1-800-684-3110. In the next segment, what we're going to do is I'm going to talk to you for a minute before, but we're going to play you a great piece that was put together by our digital team. It is on, it's one of our more than ever videos that's been rolling out the last number of weeks and sort of our key topics that we have discussed over the last few years. The ACLJ gives you a good idea of the history of how we've supported students for the last 30 years and what we're doing, what we did the last year and what we're going to be doing now progressing forward. So you're going to see that in the next segment.

I think it's an excellent piece. If you want to know more about the ACLJ, if you want to know more about why you should be donating and giving and supporting the work of the ACLJ, you're going to find out a lot of details and a really entertaining way in the next segment coming up. We also have Rick Grenell joining us later in the show. We're going to talk about how Ben & Jerry's ice cream is no longer going to be sold in what they call what the occupied Palestinian territory, AKA Israel. So we're going to talk about that coming up in the next segment, talking about obviously Jerusalem and those big regions of Israel. We're talking about that later in the show.

We're talking about school choice right now. Again, give us a call 1-800-684-3110. Support the work of the ACLJ at ACLJ.org. Right now, all donations are doubled during our matching challenge month of July.

We'll be right back. of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn. It's called Mission Life. It will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support. And the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases, how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists, the ramifications of Roe v Wade 40 years later, a play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry, and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement. Discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life. Request your free copy of Mission Life today online at ACLJ.org slash gift. At the American Center for Law and Justice, we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. Whether it's defending religious freedom, protecting those who are persecuted for their faith, uncovering corruption in the Washington bureaucracy, and fighting to protect life in the courts and in Congress, the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support.

For that we are grateful. Now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way. For a limited time, you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge. For every dollar you donate, it will be matched. A $10 gift becomes $20.

A $50 gift becomes 100. This is a critical time for the ACLJ. The work we do simply would not occur without your generous support. Take part in our matching challenge today. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today online at ACLJ.org. Welcome back to Sekulow. In just about two minutes, we're going to run this very special video presentation to give you an understanding of the history and the future of education and how it plays into the work that we do here at the ACLJ.

It's an excellent piece. I encourage you all to share this right now. If you're watching on Facebook, if you're watching on YouTube, Facebook share, YouTube hit the thumbs up and make sure you subscribe. That gets into more people's feeds because this type of news is not things you're necessarily going to hear on your mainstream television and radio news. This is the stuff that we go and we go to court and we battle for you and we support the work and we support students. Specifically, we support students and parents who want better schooling options.

And look, everyone says it. Someone said it like on the Biden website. It says, Joe Biden will invest in children from birth. So regardless of their zip code, parents, income, race, or disability, they are prepared to succeed in tomorrow's economy. Well, Dan, we only got one minute till we're going to pitch to this video, but zip code there you think would imply something that clearly they don't agree with. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, they want them to be stuck in that zip code, to be honest with you, Logan. And look, I would just tell you this very simply and very briefly. This is a moment in time. This is an opportunity for school choice to win.

We get these every once in a while on policy issues, but the pandemic clearly showed parents and students that school choice is a net good for them. Logan, this next year, this is why we're engaged in it. This is the opportunity to win it.

Absolutely. Hey, phone lines are open. We're going to take some calls in the next segment. So if you're on hold right now, we'll get you in the next segment after this video presentation. If you'd like to be on the air, there's a couple lines open, 1-800-684-3110. Great time to call and get your phone's call screen and ready to go.

1-800-684-3110. Again, here's a great presentation by our great media team who put together, this is a portion of our More Than Ever series. This one's specifically on education and the ACLJ.

Take it. We've been working on school choice and defending it in court for decades. Jordan Sekulow told us that hundreds of families had contacted the ACLJ about suing school closure districts. Coming to the education system was not a new move for the American Center for Law and Justice for the ACLJ.

We've been doing it since our founding. School choice has been an issue that we have keyed in on and we've argued all the way to the Supreme Court for decades, not just one decade, but decades. And now we're starting to see real results when it comes to school choice.

What we learned very quickly from many parents who were reaching out to the ACLJ is that their child had been left behind. I'm very interested in creating a foundation of education for those folks in the middle income arena as well as kids living in poverty, kids like myself who perhaps live in the wrong zip code going to underperforming schools. I'd love to give parents the tool of choice.

When parents have choice in education, I think their kids have a better chance of success. More than 1,900 families contacted the ACLJ during the pandemic looking for help to get educational options for their students. And more than anything, we just wanted to be an advocate for those families, for those students. We wanted to find real solutions for real problems for real students that were facing adversity. And so we were faced with a lot of different issues where people are contacting us regarding their ability to let their kids go to school. This is an administration coming in saying we want to shut down charter schools.

We want to only have public school options and then private schools for those who can afford it, which most of their kids go to. The ACLJ occupies a very special space. There are lots of other places that do lots of important work for America, but the ACLJ has taken up a lane which is irreplaceable. The more than ever campaign is all about reminding Americans that now we need the ACLJ more than ever. Tonight, US cases of coronavirus more than doubling with two new cases in Southern California and one in Maricopa County, Arizona.

The CDC confirming all five patients in the US had traveled to Wuhan. But what happened with the pandemic, obviously everything changed. So you had the need for alternative school situations, which involved everything from school choice to during the pandemic, getting special needs of students met by their counties. Schools were saying we're going to go online, but these people didn't have internet in their home, couldn't afford it, didn't have iPads for their kids. Some parents lacked resources, basic resources such as internet or computers. We literally had school children who were sitting on curbs near police cars in order to steal the internet from the police cars so that they could complete their assignments. Not every student has equal opportunity in the sense that there's a huge digital divide in this country.

So if you are in a rural environment or rural school district, in some cases do not have access to rural broadband. It also has significantly hurt our students with special needs and disabilities. Children with special needs have special rights under the law. And one of the things that they have the right to is an individual education plan. And many of the children in this situation during the pandemic were not having that individual education plan administered. We were able to come alongside families and make sure that school districts found a way to give those children educational options during the pandemic.

So I'm very proud of the role that the ACLJ played. They were trying to pass, what happened was it was this kind of like broad-based, one-size-fits-all approach to education when you had special needs students that had special needs. And the county had the resources to do it.

They just weren't forthcoming. And that's why we went aggressively on that issue. One of the things that we want to impress upon people is the need, especially during this pandemic, to get kids back in school. That's very important for us is to make sure that children are back in school provided, of course, that the environment is safe all around. Should parents have the option to use the tax dollars that are allocated to their child to send them someplace else that is open if they want them in school? We need to get our schools back open again. We're the most innovative nation in the world.

We can do it. If your school isn't opening, don't accept it. It's your child. It's your money.

Why should you pay for a service you're not getting? Reopen schools or give me my school money back. It shouldn't be about where you live or what neighborhood you're in, about how good of an education your kid gets. We are not having a problem based simply on resources. We're not having a problem based on zip codes.

We are having a problem based on imagination. We're having a problem based on the circumstances that the adults find the kids, not that the kids find themselves. So if we teach to where we want them to go, as opposed to dumbing it down, we'd get high-performing students in high-performing schools in the poor zip codes. Joe Biden is 100% against school choice. If I'm President, Betsy DeVos's whole notion from charter schools to this are gone. That's a huge challenge we face pre and post-pandemic. I think our efforts have to be ramped up exponentially during this administration. The idea of school choice and the ability to have options for parents is something that the Trump administration understood well and put those thoughts and policies into concrete action so that there actually could be movement on those issues.

We're already seeing a regress. As soon as you take away local control, as soon as you federalize everything, which is what's happening under the current administration, things change and education is best served by the local community. School choice is winning across the country. Parents, students, even school districts are realizing that giving parents more options is the way to accomplish this. I think the pandemic has changed a lot of minds. In fact, I know it's changed a lot of minds on school choice.

People are fed up. We have been fighting for school choice. We've been fighting for religious liberty within public schools and we have been fighting against attacks on private religious schools. With the changes that are taking place in this new administration, the ACLJ today is needed now more than ever.

That's why I am so thrilled to be a small part of this really important organization. Now more than ever ACLJ is prepared to go to court if necessary to do the things necessary to get your children properly educated. We're not afraid of courtrooms. We're not afraid of judges and we're not afraid of juries.

It is about saying let's just give the American people a choice. We know public schools will improve. Some parents will choose private schools. Some will choose religious schools.

Some will choose schools that have no religious affiliation. That's what we're fighting for the ACLJ but we believe that education is key and that's why we really believe that the ACLJ on the education front is needed now more than ever. We have an opportunity here.

We have to seize it. At the American Center for Law and Justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad. For a limited time you can participate in the ACLJ's Matching Challenge. For every dollar you donate it will be matched. A ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars.

A fifty dollar gift becomes one hundred. You can make a difference in the work we do, protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family. Give a gift today at aclj.org. Live from Washington D.C., Sekulow Live. And now your host, Logan Sekulow. This is Logan Sekulow joined by Than Bennett in Washington D.C. and Will Haines here in studio and we are talking about the ACLJ's continual fight for students rights and free Christian schooling education options when it comes to school vouchers where there are situations like what's happening right now in Maine where a Supreme Court case is being taken up that says no you can't say because it's a Christian school you can't receive a voucher for it you can't receive any school choice funding for it so we're going to talk about that this segment we have tons of calls coming in talking about people's current plans and future plans for schooling and education I know again it sounds like we're in the heat of summer but we are only a couple weeks away from a lot of students going back to school I know for for my kids we are only three weeks away I said it's depressing but we are three weeks away from summer coming to an end and the return of school and what's that going to look like in a post-covid world or in a world that's currently still dealing with a crisis that's been going on for over a year we're going to be talking about that coming up in this segment if you're on hold right now I'm going to take a couple calls that's going to free up some lines so if you want to be on the air 1-800-684-3110 we've got time for maybe one call for this segment then we'll try to get to all of them coming up in the next segment final segment we'll be joined by Rick Grinnell let's go first to Pauline who's calling in Maine Pauline thanks for calling yes um I'm I'm a long-time supporter and I send you donations when I can I don't have any children but um I am just thrilled that you're taking on this fight for Maine uh we just had a Catholic school closed after 60 years and um and we're threatened and um I think that if you don't already have a foothold in Maine maybe this will secure one for you because I think a lot of eyes are going to be open this is a liberal state and I called Senator Collins office to tell them about what you guys are doing and I intend to call the other representatives as well sure and I want to give you kind of a brief understanding of how this works so this case has been going on for quite some time uh and we are involved in the way that we are filing in support filing a brief essentially in support which we have it's on the screen right now of the students and of the of the uh of the parents who want Christian school option to be one of the options when Maine has shut that down and really what it takes in a lot of these cases is a parent uh of students to have the courage to come forward and be like wait this feels like it isn't right the school gives us the state gives us all these options but specifically we can't uh have religious freedom in this area that they're discriminating against religious schools so the parents that then filed suit against the state program and when we hear about this this is one of the ways we get involved is we file amicus briefs we use our attorneys our wealth of knowledge the history that the ACLJ has had in cases like this to file briefs in support of that case we also will take on clients as well in other areas so if you're listening to this and you're like this sounds similar to a situation we have in our state or in our school district yeah or if you have any religious freedom issues or things that you just feel like you like Will said you just feel like it doesn't set right with you that this can't be with the law and a lot of times you know what even your lawmakers they don't even know the law that's just the truth of it but that's why we have the ACLJ you have the lawyers you have the legal team hundreds of people ready to jump on and to help you out at no cost to you all you have to do is go to aclj.org and you'll see it right at the top get legal help there'll be a survey you'll fill out kind of explaining your situation what you're in need of if it falls within our scope you're getting connected straight to an attorney and we are off to the races to support you and we can't do that without though the support of the ACLJ donors because the ACLJ is non-profit so that means there's no legal fees you know we're not charging people to represent them but we have to have people who the lawyers still need to get paid so what we do is you support us we support the whole world and it really is the world it's beyond just what we do in this country but specifically with school choice look we have a petition right now that's demand school choice give every child equality and opportunity of justice it is available right now at aclj.org if you're watching online i think it's tat it's like posted and pinned on facebook there's about 79,542 of you that have already signed this thing let's get that up to 80,000 before the end of the show we got a couple segments so click that button it's on aclj.org if you're watching on facebook you'll see it right there go quickly sign and support the work of the ACLJ and put your voice to work also give us a call we have three lines open 1-800-684-3110 and those on hold i'm going to get to you in the next segment that's 1-800-684-3110 at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad whether it's defending religious freedom protecting those who are persecuted for their faith uncovering corruption in the washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in congress the ACLJ would not be able to do any of this without your support for that we are grateful now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way for a limited time you can participate in the ACLJ's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes one hundred this is a critical time for the ACLJ the work we do simply would not occur without your generous support take part in our matching challenge today you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today online at aclj.org only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive and that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the american center for law and justice to defend the right to life we've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the ACLJ's battle for the unborn it's called mission life it will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support and the publication includes a look at all major ACLJ pro-life cases how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists the ramifications of Roe v Wade 40 years later play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry and what Obamacare means to the pro-life movement discover the many ways your membership with the ACLJ is empowering the right to life request your free copy of mission life today online at aclj.org gift welcome back to secular logan logan secular here hey i want to say give us a call 1-800-684-3110 some of you guys during the break hung up so we got some open lines it doesn't happen that regularly so if you're listening you're like i've always wanted to talk on the radio i've always wanted to hear my voice spread to millions of people my opinions i got stuff to say give us a call 1-800-684-3110 let's go ahead and go to martha who's calling on line one in alaska martha thanks for calling thanks for taking my call you're welcome welcome um so i am a public school teacher here and i also have children who go to school and um i just wanted to say that i would welcome school choice my principal and i actually had a conversation about this last year and we disagreed um he thinks that school choice would hurt the public school system but um i think it would actually help especially parents who are struggling during this time um i know that we've had a lot of um parents who have chosen to do home school as an option um there aren't a lot of choice options within our community because it's alaska and we're a small place but i actually made the choice this last year um to send my own children to the local private school which is faith-based um my husband and i had thought about it for a long time but we've never really done it partly because of financial reasons and we decided this year because of covid and school starting remote again um that we were going to send them to the christian school because they are in person sure i think that is the the just for teachers obviously that that shows you the real plight people are in will when you hear a call like martha's where people are uh dealing with that true fact which is that a lot of christian schools and private schools were able to open fully function maybe they had mass mandates but that's just based on local laws but we're in in at least give you the option to be in person across the board last year they're at least coming up this year the same so when you hear that call a teacher herself who's coming from the public school saying we need school choice not only do we need school choice uh you know we need school choice specifically for religious schools because they're the ones potentially who are doing it differently and maybe are not only just giving your kids a great education not only instilling them with great spiritual values but beyond that are able to do different things like get in person when a lot aren't well and fan brought this up earlier right that last year kind of opened up the doors and eyes in many ways to people that uh maybe school choice is necessary when you have something like a pandemic and you don't have choice to go to school in the public schools so a lot of states as we talked about did start to make these maneuvers but then with this latest stimulus package that was passed just early this year right after the biden administration got in and it was not a bipartisan one like the five that were previously under the trump administration it had a provision in it that said that states could not directly or indirectly offset revenues well a big revenue offset so tax offset program is a school choice that would be an indirect revenue offset for many of these states and fan uh we actually represent 78 members of congress in one of these cases and 74 and another that was just a win in ohio but this plays right into what the caller was talking about how if a state sees a need in the middle of the pandemic now the federal government was stepping in and saying you actually can't do this or we'll have to claw back this stimulus money that we've given to the state yeah the caller actually sets this up perfectly will because look if alaska were to enact a school choice provision and by the way alaska is a perfect candidate for this you talk about spread out land mass a lot of rural families they would be a perfect state to expand school choice but under this provision that you're talking about in the most recent stimulus bill if they were to do that will anytime between now and 2024 if the department of treasury found that it was going to have a net reduction in in tax revenue to the state which many school choice programs do it's a it's a choice to invest tax dollars back into students and families which is a natural application of those funds but if the treasury department were to find that it was going to reduce revenue they would actually say we're going to come back and we're going to take your stimulus dollars away from you they're actually going to uh it would essentially it's essentially a prohibition on any kind of a tax cut and in any kind of school choice expansion so will you're right we we are filing in defense of the states who are challenging this we got a good ruling in the state of ohio that found that ohio has standing to challenge the case and a permanent injunction is in place in that case and will there are 14 states now challenging down in alabama led by west virginia another state actually just recently uh joined that application they intervened in that suit we're waiting for a ruling there but we think the ruling in ohio will will carry in that case as well and i just think it's a great example while these school choice initiatives have to bubble up from the state level they are going to get opposed at the federal level but we can stand with states and actually push back and win in the courts and this is also the type of case that because it involves the federal government in the states that we like we had a win in ohio on it and if we get a favorable ruling or a split ruling in this other case it's the one that could go up to the appeals level and then eventually up to the supreme court and because we are representing members of congress on our brief it's something that we could see engagement at the supreme court level representing both aclj members and members of congress potentially going forward absolutely let's go ahead and take another phone call while we're here let's go to terry who's calling in california on line three terry you're on the air hey guys i am in a fairly conservative area here in the state of california and our local school districts are pushing back on the mask mandate saying there's no you know medical necessity for it things are fine we're opening up we're doing great but our state of california is pushing the entirety of the state and all school districts and all children to be mass so i guess my question is how do we as parents fight back that legal requirement sure yeah i mean i'm not sure specifically on yours the legal issue that you're having with the mask mandates i know that they are going up and down and changing uh every day headed towards school i know people are concerned about specifically what school looks like going into this coming year first i know i was i was look i was waiting that email as well as to what that was going to look like for our school area and for our schools uh thankfully it looks like that that won't happen but it does seem like there are ways that parents can uh hopefully make choices and can have ways to move in different things that's why we really do have a school choice option we help with the school choice option for a lot of people and we fight for students rights at the aclj and at aclj.org you can find out so much more information about that and to terry's point as well so there's things like the mask mandates or whether it's the curriculum or things of that nature what we did see over the past year is that a lot of times uh because of the pandemic some school districts or or school boards use that as an excuse to exclude the parents from the decision-making process and so i mean broadly yeah that has been a problem forever than that that teacher parents just simply sometimes need to speak up because they have the right to stand up for their student and stand up for their kid it doesn't just have to be demanded this is how they're going to learn this is what they're going to be told because not then beyond mask beyond mask beyond that kind of thing even the topics that are brought up and the conversations that are had you should always get involved and know that you do have a lot of rights as students and a lot of rights as the parent oh look things like curriculum and the hours that school is held how busing has happens all of that logan has handled at a local school board level we've always advocated for that because it gives parents the most opportunity to engage so you're right i think any kind of a pushback against any concern you have inside your school should start at that local level and logan that that's frankly it goes hand in hand with why we do advocate for school choice because then even after you after you've advocated if your local school board makes decisions or too many decisions that you just can't go along with don't think they meet the best your kids needs as well as they should then you will have the option to go elsewhere but logan it without that school choice many times parents are left without an option so even if they advocate if they don't get something that is to their satisfaction they're kind of stuck so i think advocating at local school boards and a school choice program i think they go hand in hand absolutely we do have some other calls coming in i'm not sure if we'll be able to get to them we're going to do our best let's see if we get through here because i do think students rights and parents rights are at the forefront of what the aclj has been doing for 30 plus years and whether that's in terms of how you can express your faith how you can express yourself how a student can get the proper education and the best possible education make sure your kids are learning what you want them to be learning and not being told uh some agenda that you are not in favor of and that massively a lot of times a lot of people are not in favor of is our phone call ready are they not gonna be ready now okay i don't know if we'll be able to get to that phone call coming up hey in the next segment we have rick grinnell joining us we're going to talk about the bds movement which you've obviously heard about the boycott divest and sanction movement of israel and the latest move to it which is that ben and jerry's ice cream yes maybe your beloved fish food maybe your beloved uh cherry garcia is no longer going to be sold in the what they call the uh occupied areas of palestine essentially which are of course jerusalem and major areas of israel and what that looks like not just and that sounds silly but what this means for the global impact of israel in in products being sold and things moving forward and also how certain areas of this country if you start pulling that kind of stuff guess what you're gonna get pulled from the shelves yourself so we're talking about that coming up in the next segment if you want to support the work of the aclj i'm going to encourage you to do it right now go to aclj.org not only would it be great to share this broadcast and share the blogs and sign the petitions but make a donation today there's donations for the rest of the month for the next 10 days or so are doubled which means if you not for you if you give 10 there's someone on the other side one of our great aclj members said i'm going to match up to a certain amount so as much as you donate it gets doubled which is awesome that means double the effect of your donation double the amount of work at aclj.org only when a society can agree that the most vulnerable and voiceless deserve to be protected is there any hope for that culture to survive and that's exactly what you are saying when you stand with the american center for law and justice to defend the right to life we've created a free powerful publication offering a panoramic view of the aclj's battle for the unborn it's called mission life it will show you how you are personally impacting the pro-life battle through your support and the publication includes a look at all major aclj pro-life cases how we're fighting for the rights of pro-life activists the ramifications of roe v wade 40 years later play on parenthood's role in the abortion industry and what obamacare means to the pro-life movement discover the many ways your membership with the aclj is empowering the right to life request your free copy of mission life today online at aclj.org slash gift at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad whether it's defending religious freedom protecting those who are persecuted for their faith i'm covering corruption in the washington bureaucracy and fighting to protect life in the courts and in congress the aclj would not be able to do any of this without your support for that we are grateful now there's an opportunity for you to help in a unique way for a limited time you can participate in the aclj's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes 100 this is a critical time for the aclj the work we do simply would not occur without your generous support take part in our matching challenge today you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today online at aclj.org welcome back to secular we're joined by rick grinnell we're talking now about moving from school choice which is important topic something we need to be keep discussing but we're talking about what's going on in the world of israel and the bds movement and specifically what you may have seen and what you may think is a silly headline but i think we need to break into what the serious nature of something like this is which you have someone like ben and jerry's ice cream american-based company run by two jewish guys in vermont very predominant liberal company we've known that forever this is not a shock that ben and jerry's would do this but maybe made one of the biggest moves that we have seen in terms of the way trade is happening in israel and said hey we are putting a stop to the sales of our products our ice cream yes we're talking about ice cream you're talking about one of the biggest brands in the world uh in the what they called will what they call it the occupied palestinian territory the occupied palestinian territory aka jerusalem those areas of israel rick uh you've been involved in the bds movement the anti-bds movement for a long time uh i know you were calling on people saying essentially you're joining a in iran regime you're you made big statements about this because i don't know if people understand i mean can you you can't imagine those kind of things happening anywhere else in the world it seems like israel it's the only place that it's allowed i actually think it's a really distorted sickness that many american companies are doing this and i would lump in um you know protests like the u.s soccer team into this uh what is crazy about it is that israel in that entire region of the middle east is the one country that values human rights and pushes for the rule of law on capitalism i mean let's just take uh you know this to the next level and i i think it's not too much to say that ben and jerry's ice cream is uh boycotting a a country that is solidly for human rights and in favor of a territory that on a daily basis discriminates against people including gay people including women including christians um the the idea that somehow they're doing good by punishing the country that is a beacon of human rights in the area is a sickness i i just don't see how it's an upside down world and i don't see how people can view it any other way rick you were instrumental in one of the biggest anti-bds movements in uh in really history with both the abraham accords and the serbia kosovo recognition of the state of israel that did more at least for me to push back on the bds movement last year than a lot of things have in in recent recent history uh now they're seeming to get a foothold now it's a friendlier u.s administration uh how do you see this playing out when you have nations that historically weren't recognizing israel uh kind of on the opposite end of the bds spectrum now yeah it's such a good question you know a couple of thoughts one u.s leadership is required i mean you know multilateral institutions and very little works if the united states is not the leader and so i would call upon the biden administration to recognize that they're speaking to a few radical people inside the government and the second point which relates to that is i actually think the people are on our side when when you talk to regular people they understand that israel is uh the the democratically elected i mean how many elections have we had in israel over the last two years and you compare that continually yeah right um and then you compare that to uh you know the palestinian authority which um abbas is in his 15th year of his five-year term from 2005 and so the the upside upside down world is only recognized by these very few radicals inside governments and inside multilateral institutions like the un but regular people know and regular people are with us and so i think it's incumbent upon many of us who support israel christians jews even muslims who recognize that israel uh is a protected country and should be a protected country that we all have to articulate exactly what's going on with companies like ben and jerry's it's wrong and again it's a it's an upside down world that they uh that they have and i think that they're going to suffer from it i don't think that sales are going to increase it's an easy you know kind of silly story sounding to trivialize that the sale of ice cream is a big deal but what it is like you said it's a much bigger problem when it becomes ben and jerry's and ben and jerry's turns into your next company which the next company all of a sudden the corporate world feels like they have to react or they have to start doing this and we've seen that snowball role i was talking to someone recently who was you know what you would say was canceled uh you know a famous person uh and said oh but what we did we started going around the country and realizing that wait a second just because the media had said no we're not going to book you anymore no you're not going to be on tv anymore no you're not going to get this guess what though they go town to town and sell out shows day after day after day because the normal people people who actually are the audience not the big corporations they're not taking it that way look i think it's really important that our listeners and viewers that are listening to this discussion that they not just be outraged if they're in their car or at home listening that they not just say oh my gosh that's terrible what what what kind of world are we living in but there are things that you can do and we need the masses and i would say there are two things that you can do if you're listening one you have to support the aclj we are able to go after and file in court which is where i think we can win more often legal challenges we highlight these issues you've got to have an organization that jumps on this immediately and organizes all of us that's the aclj and two i think on this specific issue when you go to the grocery store i would ask to speak to the manager and i would say you know i just want you to know i'm not buying ben and jerry's and make that grassroots point that ben and jerry's have made a move and you don't agree with it and so therefore because they are doing a bds move um you're going to also uh vote with your pocketbook and you're going to tell the manager that you're not buying that ice cream yeah this is not a just small decision corporately you can go i can get past it you know this this is a major decision from a major company right i mean they're owned by unilever it's not just ben and jerry's isn't just a small company it's a division of a very large company that produces a whole host of products yeah that's also to remember that as well yeah i think a lot of people are commenting that as well look i've never been the person who's like hey boycott this don't do this yeah we're obviously that's specifically what they're doing but guess what i'm not doing and i'm certainly will not be purchasing uh ben and jerry's ice cream for the foreseeable future unless major changes are made and not that it was you know necessarily the the big thing that everyone was going to right now has been and everyone you have been it's been a jerry's craze right now it's not the 90s anymore but it still is a major company that people need to uh respond to and react to and don't treat it lightly because it sounds like a funny thing with ice cream being pulled you're talking about people who it always hurts the people you never decide you know they never decide to hurt the governments you say like go after what's going on actually the problems in some of these regions it's let's punish just the regular people in in israel selling the ice cream in exactly in these places it's it's shop owners it's small business owners well rick thank you so much for joining us and i will continue to to discuss and keep this conversation going because i think it's something that's sadly just bubbling and we'll see where it goes we've been on the fight in the front line of the bds anti-bds movement for years we're going to continue to do that as well school choice i want to appreciate all of you who listened and called today thank you so much we'll be back tomorrow with a brand new episode of secular and until then go to aclj.org follow us on all our social medias like share subscribe do all of those things of course donate as it is part of the matching challenge right now at the american center for law and justice we're engaged in critical issues at home and abroad for a limited time you can participate in the aclj's matching challenge for every dollar you donate it will be matched a ten dollar gift becomes twenty dollars a fifty dollar gift becomes one hundred you can make a difference in the work we do protecting the constitutional and religious freedoms that are most important to you and your family give a gift today online at aclj.org you