The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed a federal lawsuit against the state Tuesday alleging discrimination against disabled students under the Open Enrollment Program, according to a statement.
The suit, which WILL filed on behalf of four unnamed children, seeks to end an alleged two-track system, in which school districts can deny access to disabled students if the district can prove that accepting the students would place undue financial burden on the district.
"Wisconsin's open enrollment program gives parents the freedom to find a public school that best meets their child's individualized needs," said CJ Szafir, education policy director at WILL, in the press release. "All children, regardless of whether they have a disability, deserve equal access to this program."
WILL does not seek to end the open enrollment program; rather, it wants the court to declare that the open enrollment law violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the Rehabilitation Act according to the statement.
Defendants in the case include state Superintendent Tony Evers, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and the Elkhorn Area, Greendale and the Muskego-Norway school districts.
Open enrollment, a program started in the late 1990s, allows students to attend public schools outside of their school district if that school has room to fill. Last school year, nearly 30,000 children took advantage of the program.
During that same school year, more than 1,000 disabled children were denied open enrollment to various schools because of their disabilities, WILL attorneys said in their filing for suit.
