One of Trump’s biggest achievements was shifting the balance of the formerly ultra-liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. That’s paying dividends in regards to a ruling against California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a recall effort and has seen his star dim over the last month.

The court slapped down Newsom’s discriminatory and arbitrary shuttering of private schools, something he ostensibly did in response to the COVID pandemic. Oddly enough, rights don’t cease to exist just because politicians say so.

2/ First pages of opinion: pic.twitter.com/Qm4tlNu82I

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) July 23, 2021

This is a good ruling, in my view. No governor should have the right to shut down private schools, especially when the shuttering of those schools appears arbitrary in contrast with other events still being allowed to take place. The point of private schools is to take the control of education out of the hands of the government. For that same government to then step in and close those schools in an arbitrary fashion is completely out of line.

Further, the battle against private schools during the pandemic has always looked like spite. Whether it was in happening California, New York, or Maryland, these Democrat politicians wanted to produce shared misery that helped push their progressive policies along the way. Given their opposition to the very nature of private schooling, sticking it to those entities was an easy call.

Even with this victory, though, the battle continues in regards to public schools. The 9th Circuit did not rule the issue moot based on this ruling, which means other challenges can go forward. Those include other aspects of Newsom’s emergency orders, including the forced closure of public schools. We’ll see how those turn out, but all of this is bad news for the governor as his lockdown efforts have been a primary driver of the recall effort against him. The more this stays in the news, the worse Newsom looks. That’s a good thing for the future of California.