Thanks to an IJ court victory today, Pennsylvania bureaucrats can no longer tell IJ clients Courtney Haveman and Amanda Spillane—and many others like them—that they lack sufficient “good moral character” to earn an honest living giving facials.

Courtney and Amanda are the first to admit they have made mistakes. Nearly a decade ago, both women committed crimes as a result of their struggles with drug and alcohol abuse. In the years since, they have overcome addiction and turned their lives around. But after spending months and thousands of dollars on cosmetology training, when Courtney and Amanda turned in their applications to become licensed, the Pennsylvania Board of Cosmetology shut them down simply because of their past—even though it has no bearing on their ability to safely apply skin care treatments.

Pennsylvania’s “good moral character” requirement is just one more example of the ways that arbitrary and burdensome occupational licensing laws hurt people most in need of an opportunity to climb the economic ladder. In today’s ruling, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, the state’s intermediate appellate court, called this requirement “unconstitutional and unenforceable,” highlighting the fact that applicants for a barber license face no such moral scrutiny yet perform many of the same tasks as cosmetologists.

As IJ documented in our recent national study Barred from Working, 30,000 of these “collateral consequence” laws prevent people with criminal backgrounds—more than 19 million Americans—from working in all kinds of industries, from cosmetology to plumbing to athletic training. In addition to the precedent set by today’s victory, IJ’s case also spurred state legislative reform that will take effect in December, further extending legal protection for the right of all Pennsylvanians to support themselves and their families.

With nearly 15 million Americans still out of work, our efforts on this front are more important than ever. Please help IJ give more hard-working people like Courtney and Amanda a fresh start by supporting our work with an online gift today.

Scott

Scott G. Bullock
President and General Counsel
Institute for Justice

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