May 24, 2010 12:20PM # Cato’s Amicus Brief Helps School Choice Get to the Court; Congrats, IJ! By [Ilya Shapiro](https://www.cato.org/people/ilya-shapiro) --- SHARE As [Andrew Coulson noted](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/24/supreme-court-will-hear-appeal-of-school-choice-case/), the Supreme Court has agreed to hear *Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn*, the education tax credit case whose cert petition [Cato supported with an amicus brief](https://www.cato.org/pubs/legalbriefs/acsto_v_winn.pdf). So we didn’t get the summary reversal we optimistically hoped for but I’m confident that this means only that the Ninth Circuit’s reversal will have to wait 8–10 months. Congratulations to Tim Keller, Dick Komer, and our friends at the [Institute for Justice](http://ij.org/), which successfully litigated the [*Zelman v. Simmons-Harris* case](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelman_v._Simmons-Harris) that is the pro-school choice precedent the Ninth Circuit so blithely ignored here. I should note that ours was one of only three amicus briefs filed in this case, and [studies have shown](http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1555091.pdf) that the first few such briefs increase chances of Supreme Court review significantly (having more than about three seems to be redundant). Which isn’t to say that we take credit for the successful strategy that IJ and its co-counsel are pursuing — indeed, as is good appellate practice, we coordinated with IJ so our brief would offer the Court some arguments and nuance for which the parties’ briefs didn’t have space — but it is gratifying to see the Court impliedly see the validity of our position. We will of course be filing again at the merits stage, which briefs won’t be due for a few months. The Court will likely hear the case in late fall, so we should expect a final decision in winter 2011. For all the filings in the case, see [its SCOTUSwiki page](http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Arizona_Christian_School_Tuition_Organization_v._Winn%3B_Garriott_v._Winn) or [its Supreme Court docket page](http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docketfiles/09-988.htm). I blogged about the case [here](https://www.cato.org/2010/03/22/taxpayer-choice-parental-choice-education-reform-thats-constitutional/) and [here](https://www.cato.org/2010/05/19/supreme-court-should-call-out-ninth-circuit-in-education-case/) and George Will [wrote about it last week](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051803989.html). Andrew also blogged the original Ninth Circuit decision [here](https://www.cato.org/2009/04/22/9th-circuit-imitates-marcel-marceau/). ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).