A Massachusetts policy that restricts where private school students can receive publicly funded special education services is at the center of the lawsuit.
Do state educational benefits carry over to students attending private schools? That’s the question the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review as they finalize their cases for the October 2026 term.
Two Massachusetts families are asking the Supreme Court to hear their challenge to a state regulation that allows their private school children to access public school special education services but only at a public school or a “neutral” location.
The families, whose children with disabilities attend Jewish day schools, said in their July 20 petition that the Massachusetts’ policy penalizes private school students who have a constitutional right to attend private schools but who want access to publicly funded special education services.
They are asking the high court to determine whether its “unconstitutional conditions doctrine” means that governments generally may not make a benefit like special education services conditional on surrendering their constitutional right to attend private schools. The unconstitutional conditions doctrine is Supreme Court precedent that a government is forbidden from conditioning an otherwise available benefit on the surrender of a constitutional right.
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