The NC Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Thursday to reverse a previous court ruling in the Hoke County Board of Education v. State of North Carolina lawsuit, known by most as the Leandro case, which required the state legislature to provide public schools with $1.75 billion in funding.
The ruling came after more than two years of silence since the court heard arguments. Under the decision that the court reversed, the legislature would have had to fund a plan designed in 2021 to significantly increase funding for public schools on account of the lawsuit’s original claim that the state was not fulfilling its constitutional duty to provide a sound, basic education to all children.
Thursday’s opinion addresses the oral arguments heard by the NC Supreme Court in 2022, when it ruled in favor of Leandro and the other plaintiffs. The new ruling reverses the one in 2022 that ordered the legislature to partially fund the consultant agency WestEd’s Comprehensive Remedial Plan.
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Four days after the 2022 ruling, elections resulted in the court’s partisan makeup shifting from a 4-3 Democratic majority to a 5-2 Republican majority. Deliberations on the transfer of funds continued through 2023 until the newly Republican-dominated court agreed to hear another round of oral arguments on the matter, which took place Feb. 22, 2024.
Reaction to latest Leandro ruling
Thursday’s 244-page opinion addresses the arguments by saying the courts are not the deciders of how the legislature distributes funds. A spokesperson for House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, said the decision rightly recognizes the role of public school funding as belonging to the legislature, whereas the North Carolina Association of Educators called the court’s decision “a moral failure.”
“Today, thousands of North Carolina students walked into overcrowded classrooms and crumbling school buildings,” the NCAE’s statement read.
“And thousands of educators are committed to the young people of this state, in spite of the state’s failure to adequately fund our schools, because we believe that every child deserves the best we can give them. Today, the majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court made it clear they do not share that belief. What the court tries to pass off as a legal technicality is, instead, a moral failure.”
The case was brought on in 1994 by five low-wealth counties, Hoke, Halifax, Vance, Robeson and Cumberland, which said their children didn’t have access to the same education and resources as children in wealthier districts.
State Rep. Rodney Pierce, D-Halifax, told Carolina Public Press as a former Halifax County student and teacher, and now as a Halifax County parent and lawmaker, he understands the challenges facing underfunded, underresourced schools. He fears this ruling will only drive further inequality.
“What this will do is basically further widen this gap between the haves and the have-nots — those who have an adequately-funded public education system where they live, where they have a tax base that can perhaps make up for any shortfalls that come due to the state funding, and those who do not have it,” he said.
Three justices dissent
Democratic Justices Anita Earls and Allison Riggs and Republican Justice Richard Dietz dissented. The Supreme Court seems unwilling to “meaningfully check constitutional rights violations,” Earls said in her written dissent.
“One result of today’s decision of which we can be certain is the sad stain this Court leaves on its own reputation and the self-inflicted injury it deals to the Court’s standing as a coequal branch of North Carolina’s government,” Earls said.
“It is difficult to estimate the damage this Court has done to its own legitimacy by trying to rewrite a fundamental constitutional guarantee because it no longer comports with the Justices’ individual political preferences — and denying any relief to injured parties who proved in a court of law that the State violated their fundamental education rights.”
The case has drawn lines in the sand among political parties throughout the years. Jack Boger, former dean of the UNC School of Law, told CPP in February that Republicans specifically have made it known they’re against implementing the funding. With Democrats not having a chance to take over the court again until after the 2028 election, he predicted it would not be in Leandro supporters’ best interest for the court to rule on the case any time soon.
With the midterm elections around the corner, Pierce said he is disappointed but not surprised by the court’s move.
“When you are in a position where you feel like your party has some things that it’s doing, policy-wise, that are unpopular, then perhaps you do something policy-wise that you feel will strengthen your party standing at the ballot box,” he said. “And that’s reversing the decision.”
As a social studies teacher, Pierce said he can’t help but think back to 1868 when the state’s reconstruction constitution was drafted and Black and white men came together to agree that the right to an education was paramount.
“I always think of that when it comes to Leandro, I always think back to that reconstruction constitution, because despite the differences — which were much wider back then — they still found room to agree on something that’s integral to our society, which is being educated,” he said.
Clarification: The article has been updated to show that the comments from Justice Anita Earls come from her written dissent.
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