The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday struck the greatest blow for equal public education since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. In the process it also stripped away the last Constitutional and moral figleaf from those who want to keep minority kids trapped in failing public schools.

Had Zelman v. Simmons-Harris gone the other way, the education establishment would have declared the death of school vouchers. But yesterday's 5-4 court majority upheld a Cleveland program giving tax dollars for parents to use at any participating school: public, private or parochial.

The legal issue itself was narrow but momentous: Whether the Cleveland program offended the First Amendment's Establishment Clause simply because 96% of the children receiving vouchers ended up in religious schools. The Court answered with a resounding "No." Writing for the majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist explained that because the parents, and not the government, decided where these tuition dollars ended up, this is a "program of true private choice."

This should sweep away for good the objection that school choice violates the separation of church and state. That fog of illegitimacy has been thrown up to stop voucher plans everywhere. But as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor pointed out in her concurring opinion, state money flows to religious institutions throughout our society. Pell grants go to college students who use them to attend Yeshiva University, and Medicaid payments go to Catholic hospitals. As long as the individual decides where the money goes, the government is not promoting one religion over another.

The importance of this decision can be judged by the outrage of voucher opponents. This includes the predictions of Social Armageddon, and the dripping mistrust for religion that was all too obvious in the dissents by Justices Stephen Breyer and David Souter. (Memo to President Bush: As you contemplate your own Supreme Court appointments, remember that Justice Souter was your father's biggest mistake.)

But the broader victory in Zelman is moral, especially in the educational opportunity it opens up. Cleveland officials didn't initiate a voucher plan because they read a think-tank study. They resorted to vouchers as part of a state takeover of a school system facing a crisis that one Ohio state auditor called "perhaps unprecedented in the history of American education."

Zelman's majority opinion marshals the dismal pre-voucher statistics: only 1 out of 10 Cleveland ninth-graders able to pass a basic proficiency exam, two-thirds of high school students dropping out before graduation, a district that could not meet even one of the 18 state standards for minimal performance. Even the four dissenting justices conceded that "the record indicates that the schools are failing to serve their objective" and that if anything could excuse vouchers, this might be it.

In 1954, Linda Brown's right to a decent education was threatened by a public education system that kept her out of a successful white school. Today, voucher supporters understand that hundreds of thousands of children just like Miss Brown are threatened by a system that is once again separate but unequal.

Justice Clarence Thomas made this point in his concurrence yesterday: "While the romanticized ideal of universal public education resonates with the cognoscenti who oppose vouchers, poor urban families just want the best education for their children, who will certainly need it to function in our high-tech and advanced society."

Americans of means already have that choice. If they live in the cities, they send their kids to private schools or move to suburbs where the public schools still aim for achievement. Vouchers are a way of giving poor kids that same opportunity, and if religious schools provide it, so be it.

Zelman, in that sense, is a vindication for those of us who have stumped for vouchers for many years. That includes economist Milton Friedman, who argued against the public school monopoly as long ago as 1955; Ronald Reagan, the first modern President to support them; and especially Polly Williams, the Rosa Parks of vouchers, who defied the establishment to make school choice a reality in Milwaukee. In both Cleveland and Milwaukee, the record is that vouchers don't endanger public education. To the contrary, they offer education hope for millions of kids who would otherwise be left behind as surely as Linda Brown would have been in 1954.

Yesterday's Supreme Court decision didn't solve the urgent problem of failing urban public schools. That is now the duty of politicians, who we hope will take a cue from the Zelman case. But it removes one of the last excuses liberals, unions and the bureaucracy have used for refusing even to try.

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Updated June 28, 2002