Civil Rights Organizations Urge Governors to Reject the Trump Administration’s Federal Private School Voucher Scheme

The Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the Advancement Project, and 14 other civil rights organizations yesterday urged governors in all fifty states and the District of Columbia to reject the invitation for their respective states to opt into the federal "Education Freedom Tax Credit", a private school voucher scheme created by President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

In the letter, the organizations urged governors to inform the federal government that they decline to participate in the program, while warning that private school vouchers threaten public education, risk deepening racial segregation, and are designed to direct taxpayer dollars toward private schools while providing little benefit to the public schools that serve the vast majority of students.

"Welcoming the federal private school voucher scheme will create a two-tiered education system in your state: one that is public, serves all, guarantees students' civil rights, but loses resources under the private school voucher scheme; and one that is private, exclusionary, and hoards more resources for the wealthy few-both underwritten by the taxpayer," the letter reads in part. "In addition to being publicly unpopular, private school voucher schemes are rooted in efforts to evade desegregation. This federal private school voucher scheme supported by the Trump-Vance administration is no different."

The letter points to the history of private school vouchers following Brown v. Board of Education, when school voucher programs were used in several Southern states to help white families avoid school desegregation. Private school voucher schemes have a long history of diverting public resources to private education while exacerbating racial segregation and supporting private schools that exclude students based on race, disability, religion, and other characteristics.

Despite efforts to expand them, voucher schemes remain deeply unpopular with voters, who have rejected them at the ballot box in states including Nebraska, Kentucky, and Colorado as recently as the 2024 election cycle. State voucher programs also fail to support the majority of students and families, with data showing that most programs subsidize families already enrolled in private schools.

The organizations call on governors to decline participation in the federal private school voucher scheme and instead strengthen federal investments in public schools and the students they serve.

The letter is signed by the Legal Defense Fund, the Advancement Project, Advocates for Trans Equality, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, EdTrust, Education Law Center, Glisten, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Intercultural Development Research Center, League of United Latin American Citizens, NAACP, National Center for Learning Disabilities, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Southern Poverty Law Center, and UnidosUS.

Read the full letter.

Learn more about how the federal voucher scheme will affect students and families.

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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation's first civil rights legal organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957, though it was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall while he was at the NAACP. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) is a division of LDF that undertakes innovative research and houses LDF's archive. In all media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF (do not include NAACP) and refer to the Institute as LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute or TMI.