A Meaningless Charade

A Leandro Update

Here are the bullet points on this update. If you are not familiar with North Carolina’s Leandro lawsuit or need a refresher click here. 

Leandro-What is it & why it matters

Highlights of N.C. Supreme Court ruling on March 3, 2023.

• In November 2022 the N.C. Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 vote in favor of Leandro recognizing that every student in North Carolina has a constitutional right to a sound basic education and upheld a previous November 2021 court ruling of the transfer of $1.7 billion dollars to fund the Leandro plan. Meaning $1.7 billion dollars should have been moved from the state treasury (where the money is being held) to  N.C. public schools. That did not happen. The state legislature that has been Republican controlled since 2011 ignored this court ruling.

• Late Friday in an unprecedented vote,  the N.C. Supreme Court voted to defy the courts previous ruling and block the transfer of the money to N.C. public schools.

• The vote was 5-2 with the court’s five Republican justices supporting the order and the two Democratic justices dissenting. It must be noted that following the November 2022 election the court changed from a Democratic controlled court to a Republican controlled court.

• The new order blocks a judge from forcing state officials i.e. The state legislature, from transferring hundreds of millions dollars to N.C. public schools without input from state legislators. In other words, the Republican controlled state legislature wants control of this money and based on their past actions they have no intentions of transferring that money to N.C. public schools and furthermore, do not want to be made to do so, therefore robbing the public school system of money that is rightfully theirs. Given their track record, I will wager that they will convert some of this money to private school vouchers. That is sending public money to private schools with no accountability. 

What does all this mean? 

It means that N.C. public schools will continue to suffer and the Republican controlled state legislature under the leadership of Phil Berger and Tim Moore will continue to defund and dismantle public education as they have been doing for the last 10+ years. 

It also means that our state legislature can defy court orders and have the courts rehear cases to change the ruling to one that they approve of. Unless there are significant changes involving a case, it is unprecedented for a court to rehear a case that a previous court has already ruled. 

In the Leandro case, the only changes were in the makeup of the court. Nothing changed in the Leandro case itself. This is a situation where the new court does not agree with the previous court’s ruling, so they want to rehear this case for no other reason than to change the ruling to one that they agree with. They are also set to rehear cases on voter ID and gerrymandering, both of which have already been ruled on by the previous court. This is unprecedented and undermines the legitimacy of the court and our democracy. 

We can not turn a blind eye to the “two Phils” in this case. Phil #1 is Phil Berger, President of the Senate. He has been key in leading the decade-plus war on public education and has shown no support for Leandro. Phil #2 is his son, Phil Berger, Jr. who serves as an associate justice of the N.C. Supreme Court. The very court that just undid a previous court’s ruling so they could have the ruling THEY wanted.  This reeks of nepotism; the son is doing the bidding of Daddy. 

Justice Anita Earls wrote in her dissent that the majority took “extraordinary, unprincipled and unprecedented action….If our court cannot or will not enforce state constitutional rights, those rights do not exist, the constitution is not worth the paper it is written on, and our oath as judicial officers to uphold the constitution is a meaningless charade.”  

Why should you care?

Whether you have children in the public school system or not this will affect every citizen of this state. One of the foundational pillars of a democracy and a thriving community is a thriving public education system.  One of the most valuable investments, with a high rate of return is investing in public education.  Investing in public education pays off economically for society as a whole. An educated society attracts businesses with higher paying jobs. With the influx of business comes other things like retail, restaurants, entertainment, tourism to name a few. All of this creates jobs and a working society is a thriving society. 

An educated society earns more money causing an increase in spending and earning, therefore strengthening the local economy. An educated society is a society with higher homeownership,  lower crime rates, lower poverty, more likely to be married, more likely to be active in the community. These are just a few examples of how a community benefits from investing in public education. If we continue to allow Phil Berger and the NC GOP to continue to defund and dismantle public education, not only are we endangering our society and jeopardizing the well-being of our youth, we are also endangering the very existence of our democracy. This impacts all of us!

In 2022 75% of students in North Carolina attended public schools, that is 1.5 million students. It is our responsibility and duty to leave the children of this state a world they can thrive in. 

Our elected officials will continue to do what we allow them to do. We must demand better of them and hold them accountable at the ballot box.