such support. Her conclusion in the case, like in many other cases, was tied closely to the facts of the case. Thomas's opinion focused on the civil rights implications of the case: "Frederick Douglass once said that '[e]ducation... means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.' Today many of our inner-city public schools deny emancipation to urban minority students. Despite this Court's observation nearly 50 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education, that 'it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education,' urban children have been forced into a system that continually fails them. These cases present an example of such failures. Besieged by escalating financial problems and declining academic achievement, the Cleveland City School District was in the midst of an academic emergency when Ohio enacted its scholarship program." Thomas gave another string concurrence to this Supreme Court decision: "The protection of religious liberty using the Fourteenth Amendment is legitimate, but to use the Establishment Clause to prevent the operation of a perfectly neutral program concerning school choice is not." Thomas simply asserted that all this program did was essentially provide an educational opportunity to a range of disadvantaged minority children, the importance of it all. Dissenting opinions Justice Stevens and Justice Souter both wrote a separate dissenting opinion. Justice Stevens's dissenting opinion focused on the method by which the majority reached its conclusions. In his view, the Court "should ignore three factual matters that are discussed at length." Specifically, he argued that the Court should not consider the severe educational crisis that confronted the school district when Ohio enacted its voucher program, the wide range of choices that have been made available to students within the public school system, or the voluntary character of the private choice to prefer a private religious education over a public secular education. Justice Souter's dissenting opinion presented the voucher program as using the taxpayers for religious and secular instruction and card to the verdict of a similar case. Everson v. Board of Education decided that no tax could be used to support religious means. Because Ohio's school voucher program offered aid to those who wished to attend religious private schools, it directly violated