South North Carolina News

The North Carolina Association of Educators and the National Education Association are backing a group of parents who recently filed a lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court that challenges the constitutionality of the Opportunity Scholarship program.

The program at the center of the lawsuit currently assists an estimated 15,000 low-income families — approximately half of whom are from minority communities — in sending their children to private schools, the Carolina Journal reported on July 27. The lawsuit alleges the program provides government funding to religious institutions and discriminates against LGBT families.

“Vouchers for private schools are an affront to a state that has a long and cherished history of public education,” North Carolina Association of Educators President Tamika Walker Kelly said, the Carolina Journal reported. She is one of the seven parents suing over the Opportunity Program. 

This is not the first challenge to the program based on constitutionality, the Carolina Journal reported. A 2015 North Carolina Supreme Court ruling found the program to be constitutional in response to a lawsuit filed before the 2014 Opportunity Scholarship program went into effect.

Since that ruling, the makeup of the court has shifted.

“Voucher opponents hope that our left-leaning state Supreme Court will do what the court wouldn’t in 2015 — use an elastic interpretation of the state constitution to eliminate the state’s private school scholarship program for low-income children,” Terry Stoops, vice president of research and director of education studies at the John Locke Foundation, said. the Carolina Journal reported.