Week in Review: Father, Son, and What a School Doesn’t Want On the Record

You want what’s best for your child. You know he needs help. But the school is poised to take it away. Wouldn’t you want that on the record so you can hold the school accountable?

Boston-area dad Scott Pitta wanted to get his public school district on the record after it tried to arbitrarily remove critically important services from his 17-year-old son, who has special needs. Instead, officials unilaterally terminated a Google Meet video conference with Scott and his wife about the district’s actions—in violation of the First Amendment.

Now Scott is turning to the Goldwater Institute for help—and this week, we urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up his case.

“I don’t understand why the school district is so opposed to an accurate record of what they say,” Scott says in a new Goldwater Institute video, describing a years-long “fight with the school district for the services our child needs.”

Public schools across the country are similarly infringing on parents’ rights as they seek to usurp parents’ role in raising their kids—but Goldwater is fighting back with a landmark Academic Transparency reform, tools for parents, and a pro bono network of attorneys who stand ready to defend parents’ rights in court.

Read more and watch the video here.

VICTORY! Goldwater Puts Patients First by Tearing Down Regulatory Nightmare

Arizonans can now more easily access high-quality healthcare after the Goldwater Institute this week enacted the Sunrise Reform Act, which empowers healthcare professionals to better serve patients to the full extent of their education and training.

The new law helps ensure medical professionals who want to expand their scope of practice or the activities they are licensed to perform will not have to go through a burdensome, redundant, and unnecessary legislative step known as the “sunrise review process.” This regulatory nightmare hurt patients, making it harder to address many of Arizona’s healthcare challenges, such as rising costs, the mental health crisis, and the severe physician shortage.

In 2021, Goldwater helped Arizona adopt the nation’s most powerful telehealth reform to allow patients meet with their doctors virtually. In 2022, Arizona became the first state to enact Goldwater’s law to expand the Right to Try to individualized treatments. With the Sunrise Reform Act now law, patients can better access high-quality care from experienced healthcare professionals practicing at the top of their training—all while Arizona continues to lead the nation in protecting the right to earn a living and to work in one’s chosen profession.

Read more here.

Fighting for Free Speech in Oregon Federal Court 

You shouldn’t have to pay for speech you don’t support just to do your job. Goldwater Institute Senior Attorney Scott Day Freeman appeared in federal appellate court this week to defend Oregon attorneys who have been forced to pay mandatory bar association dues as a condition of practicing law.

Oregon is one of dozens of states that force lawyers to join their state’s privately run bar associations, which use their members’ dues to engage in a host of controversial activities that have nothing to do with ensuring lawyers are qualified and behave ethically. That’s a violation of our clients’ First Amendment liberties, so Goldwater is asking the court to declare mandatory bar associations unconstitutional.

Goldwater will continue to defend the First Amendment and challenge these unconstitutional requirements in states around the nation; we already won a massive victory when a Louisiana federal court ordered the state bar to stop forcing a New Orleans mandatory to pay mandatory dues. After all, no one should have to pay for other people’s politics just to pursue their profession.

Read more here.