As parents in Lincoln, Nebraska send their children back to school today, the New Civil Liberties Alliance is filing the Jacobsen v. Spellerberg lawsuit on behalf of two families in the District Court of Lancaster County, challenging the state’s K-12 education system’s unconstitutional abridgement of parents’ free-speech rights.

Education is speech. The curriculum taught, the books assigned, and the values reinforced inside (and outside) of the classroom all convey a message. The Constitution has long recognized that parents—not the government—hold the paramount right to direct that message for their own children.

Parents also have a legal duty to provide or arrange for educational speech. Nebraska requires parents to educate their school-aged children under threat of criminal penalties. Yet the state supplies an education only if parents enroll children in public schools and accept the government’s messaging, even when such messages contradict the parents’ values. Indeed, Nebraska ranks among the worst states in the nation for parental choice.

The lawsuit leaves to the Nebraska legislature (or the municipal Defendants) the responsibility to adopt an educational system that resolves the current constitutional violations. Plaintiffs do not seek to end, defund, or influence public schools. They seek only a level playing field for their educational speech. The lawsuit also does not challenge the content of any specific public-school curriculum or seek to force public schools to teach—or not teach—any particular viewpoint. Rather, Plaintiffs wish only to halt the government’s abridgement of their First Amendment rights to educational speech.

Nebraska’s scheme flips free speech on its head, mandating educational speech then penalizing viewpoints other than the government’s: parents who wish to exercise their right, whether by homeschooling or by choosing a private school, must forgo tens of thousands of dollars of educational benefits available to other families who acquiesce to the government’s viewpoints. That is textbook viewpoint discrimination and an unconstitutional condition on a public benefit. Read More»

Joe Martyak | “Nebraska’s Educational Scheme Violates Parents’ Free Speech” | August 13, 2026

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