In recent years, we’ve chronicled the rising tide of states – 18 now, with recent legislative victories in Texas and New Hampshire – that have embraced universal school choice.

But what about parents who live the other 32 states? Thanks to decisive action in Congress (yes, you read that correctly), the ability of parents to choose high-quality private schools, whether religiously based schools, STEM-oriented or arts-centered, will gradually increase.

Congress – with the leadership of Rep. Adrian Smith, chairman of the subcommittee of jurisdiction on Ways & Means in the House, and Sen. Bill Cassidy in the Senate – passed the Educational Choice for Children Act (ECCA) just before the July 4th holiday. This bill made available a 100-percent federal income tax credit of $1,700 for donors. This credit is available to donors in all 50 states to support scholarship-granting organizations that allow parents to send their children to a high-quality private school.

There are several aspects of this new law that will transform the American educational landscape from the national level, as governors are doing in the states.

• This tax credit is permanent. It would take a future act of Congress to undo it, something that once granted would be politically difficult to achieve.

 

• It will only take future amendments to the law to increase the tax credit and to broaden the base of donors to include businesses and other well-resourced groups.

 

• The law does limit scholarships to students who live in states in which the governor or designated agency under state law decides to opt-in to the program. But nothing keeps donors living in an “opt-out” state from donating to scholarship organizations around the country.

 

• Even in states in which politicians have been hostile to school choice it will be difficult for governors to turn down free money from the federal government to support private schools options in-state.

We again quote a recent Chicago Tribune editorial, where politicians have long been resistant to competition in education:

“Opponents of school choice believe that education is a zero-sum game, and that private schools are a threat to the public system. We believe the opposite – that a thriving private and charter system and a strong traditional public system create an educational ecosystem that can serve everyone’s needs. There are things private schools can do that public ones can’t, and the same is very much true in reverse.

“School choice remains popular in Illinois, with a clear majority of residents supporting the concept.”

With polls showing overwhelming support for school choice among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, expect to see intense pressure from parents to allow these scholarships in every state.

Another big win came with the passage and signing into law of the Student Empowerment Act, which expands 529 plans – a tax-advantaged investment account designed to encourage saving for future education expenses, such as college or K-12 tuition – to help families save for public, private, religious, and homeschool students and families.

• This bill – passed with the leadership of Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Kevin Hern – will allow parents to transfer any unused funds in a 529 account from leftover college expenses to, for example, the private religious elementary school of grandchildren.

These two measures, coupled with the rising tide of states that have embraced universal school choice, show that the school choice movement – and its support for First Amendment values – is not only here to stay, but to grow as well.

• Both the ECCA and the Student Empowerment Act give religious schools the same access to these programs as any other kind of private school.

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With victories in the states and in Washington D.C., the national success of the school choice movement now appears to only be a matter of time.

​Elite universities have undeniably become academies of progressive ideology, in dire need of diversity of thought and opinion. They have also become bastions of racial discrimination, as the Supreme Court found in its 2023 opinion, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, ruling that Harvard’s admissions policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. With President Trump announcing on Friday that he will revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, a court might well decide that Harvard’s admissions and hiring policies, and its tolerance of antisemitism on campus, make it a legitimate target for tough action.
 
But the order to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status and the administration’s April 11th letter to Harvard setting conditions for continued federal funding raise other concerns that should trouble defenders of academic freedom, especially those who are conservatives.
 
The administration tied further federal funding to reforms to the school’s curriculum and culture. Whether or not Harvard needs reform, this plainly infringes on Harvard’s First Amendment rights, endeavoring to trade Harvard’s progressive “ideological capture” for a different kind of capture – outright government control. And if successful, subsequent efforts to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status will open the floodgates to future abuses of power that conservatives will live to regret.
 
This is the inherent danger of the administration’s desire to create a superhighway for federal control of academic freedom. In Harvard’s complaint filed in federal court in Massachusetts, the university quoted the Supreme Court’s Moody v. Netchoice (2024) decision that “The First Amendment does not permit the government to ‘interfere with private actors’ speech to advance its own vision of ideological balance.’”
 
Harvard didn’t have to look far for that precedent. The U.S. Supreme Court proclaimed it in 2024, when it found that government cannot suppress disfavored speech by threat of sanctions. Based on the plain text of the government’s letter, that seems exactly the administration’s aim here. 
 
New questions will arise now that President Trump is ordering the IRS to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. As The Wall Street Journal pointed out in a recent editorial, some precedent exists that could support such an action. It is true that in 1983 the Supreme Court upheld the IRS’ revocation of Bob Jones University’s tax-exempt status based on its overtly racially discriminatory practices. The Court at that time reasoned that “an institution seeking tax-exempt status must serve a public purpose and not be contrary to established public policy.” But many critics of Bob Jones were still concerned about such policies being made by the IRS on the basis of no law.
 
Beyond the legal and constitutional questions, there are more practical reasons why the administration’s actions are dangerous. Remember when the IRS targeted conservative groups for enhanced scrutiny, seemingly based on ideology? IRS official Lois Lerner catalyzed a furor among the right when emails revealed her antipathy towards conservative groups she targeted for investigation. Conservatives should also remember the many times the government has attempted to overrule traditional religious beliefs, from the FBI’s targeting of “radical, traditional Catholics,” to management of the conscience rights of religiously oriented healthcare clinics.
 
Should this administration prevail in its effort to subjugate Harvard’s academic freedoms in accordance with its own ideological preferences, a precedent will be set for future administrations to control speech in other directions. Expanded powers of the presidency don’t just go away when a president leaves. They stay with the office, accumulating over time.
 
There are any number of less constitutionally dubious means of working with colleges and universities to introduce more heterodoxy into academic circles. And Harvard, for your part, you ought to respond to this moment by hiring at least a few conservatives – intellectuals who represent a large plurality of this country and, recently, a majority of its voters.