North Carolina’s Supreme Court has seven members. All are known as justices, an honor that seems to crystallize their responsibility in our system of government.
But as to how elusive they may find actual justice to be, consider the April 2 refusal by a 4-3 majority to uphold an obligation vitally important to generations of public-school students and hence to the well-being of the entire state.
The ruling meant the end of the Leandro case, named for the Hoke County family who became the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit dating back to 1994. The case once offered hope that school districts throughout North Carolina finally would receive enough money and support to give all their students the kind of academic opportunity they need and deserve.
Along the way the Supreme Court itself, with bipartisan agreement, interpreted the state constitution to require schools to meet a standard of quality. It held that students, no matter where they live, must have equal access to a “sound basic” education equipping them to succeed in their communities. A Democratic majority on the high court in 2022 directed the use of state funds for a remedial plan intended to ensure that the standard was met everywhere, even in our poorer counties.
Now, however, with control of the court having switched in 2023 to conservative Republicans, the Leandro rulings grounded in the constitution’s educational guarantees have been figuratively rolled to the curb and left to be hauled away like so much legal garbage. Not only was the case dismissed, but it also was dismissed under terms that mean it can’t be revived.
Chief Justice Paul Newby and three of his colleagues asserted in essence that the case had been infected with mission creep that wrongly gave it a statewide scope instead of limiting it to the five “low-wealth” counties where the original plaintiffs lived.
It wasn’t hard to see a larger issue in play. The General Assembly, under Republican control since 2011, had insisted on its prerogative under the constitution to decide when and how state funds should be spent. It saw the high court’s efforts to compel a big new infusion of money for public schools as trampling on its turf.
The Newby contingent couldn’t have agreed more. It’s not the courts’ job to set educational policies or prescribe expenditures, they intoned, none perhaps more vigorously than in the concurring opinion filed by Justice Phil Berger Jr., son of the state Senate’s president pro tem. But there was a strong comeback from the minority: It manifestly should be the courts’ job to decide when those policies lead to people’s constitutional rights being violated and to approve suitable remedies, even if they involve spending.
The state constitution notably requires that the legislature “shall provide by taxation and otherwise for a general and uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students.” It also declares, “The people have a right to the privilege of education, and it is the duty of the State to guard and maintain that right.”
From the get-go, the Leandro plaintiffs’ underlying complaint has been that these promises are empty unless school systems ensure that the experiences they offer actually manage to set students on a productive path.
That’s undoubtedly how it works for many, if not most, of the young people whose futures the schools do much to influence. But for others, perhaps in counties that can’t raise enough tax money to meet responsibilities assigned to them such as providing adequate facilities, the modest goal of a “sound basic” education remains beyond reach through no fault of their own.
Speaking up and out
The trio of justices who were outnumbered in the Leandro decision didn’t go quietly. Anita Earls, Richard Dietz and Allison Riggs each wrote dissenting opinions, with Democrats Earls and Riggs signing on to the other’s filing. [Note to readers: within the overall 244-page opinion, Justice Berger’s concurrence starts on page 112; the dissents from Earls, Dietz and Riggs start on pages 116, 194 and 209, respectively.]
Dietz, a Republican in his first eight-year term, took a pragmatic and constructive approach. He observed that the case had “lost its way” amid partisanship and bias, among other faults. Yet, he said, it should not have been dismissed. “I see a path forward,” he wrote, “that cures the State’s shameful failure to meet its constitutional obligations.… Critically, that path also returns public education policy to the other branches of government, rather than resting it permanently in the courts.”
“The Court chose not to walk that path today,” Dietz added. “But I think it is still worth mapping out. This is the end of Leandro as a lawsuit, but not Leandro as a promise to public school students.” He said the improvement program that would have been furthered by the now-canceled expenditure — $678 million — should be strengthened, with more attention to how it might not have met some students’ needs.
As to the majority’s doubts about the courts’ proper jurisdiction amid allegations that constitutional rights were being violated, Dietz wrote, “I do not agree … that there are fatal jurisdictional defects in this case.”
True, there’s something to be said for judges who insist that cases proceed by the book, staying within the boundaries of issues framed by plaintiffs and requiring jurisdiction to be correctly established. But an emphasis on procedural detail can’t become an excuse to sidestep big-picture concerns such alleged violations of constitutional rights.
Earls, now running for her second term, brought her perspective as a leading civil rights lawyer prior to joining the court. Her dissent methodically rebutted the majority opinion, both on the basis of what she described as its confused, misleading summary of the case’s history and its rejection of a role in upholding the constitution’s education guarantees.
Decrying the state’s education shortcomings, Earls wrote, “It is still true, for example, that over 7,000 classrooms in North Carolina’s public schools lack an appropriately licensed teacher, our State is next to last in per pupil spending, and there are significant achievement gaps between at-risk students and their peers from wealthier families. These disparities are exactly the challenges the Comprehensive Remedial Plan was designed to address.”
Earls then broadened her critique: “So unpersuasive is the majority’s stated reasoning that one is left to consider what is unstated. The current Court appears unable or unwilling to meaningfully check constitutional rights violations — particularly those originating from the legislature. That failure threatens constitutional rights of all stripes, foundational rule of law principles, and our system of government. It reflects poorly on our Court as a coequal branch of government entrusted with the solemn responsibility of safeguarding fundamental constitutional rights.”
‘Bootstraps’ ignored
Riggs showed in her own dissent why her hotly contested 2024 election victory over Republican Judge Jefferson Griffin was pivotal in securing another strong progressive voice on the conservative-dominated court. She offered her own analysis of the majority’s missteps and the harm it perpetuates before concluding:
“Today, this Court breaks a promise that constitutional drafters made to the people. The majority discards our constitutional commitment to the children of the state instead of acting to meet it. The majority distorts the facts and history of this case, hides behind technicalities rather than addressing the core issue affecting our children, and looks for a reason — any reason — to ignore the problem instead of fixing it.
“The majority’s message to our children is clear: pull yourself up by your bootstraps, but there is nothing this Court will do if the political branches never met their obligation to put boots on your feet in the first place.”
Yes, the political branches. The Supreme Court, as it did with a 4-3 Democratic majority as recently as 2022, could have held the legislature to account for its decades-long refusal to shore up public school funding so as to ensure an acceptable level of academic quality available to every student. That would entail providing sufficient numbers of well-qualified teachers and principals, adequately equipped buildings and programs to help students overcome the kind of challenges linked to poverty.
Instead, while making only modest efforts to raise teachers’ salaries – pay levels now making it hard to attract and keep top-flight personnel – lawmakers have concentrated on pouring public funds into supporting private schools. Families at any income level now can apply for vouchers helping them cover private school tuition, tapping an annual pot that has grown to some $600 million. That’s money which could have been used to get the Leandro remedial plan off the ground, boosting public school quality in every corner of the state.
Chief Justice Newby and his high court allies just seem to have washed their hands of any responsibility to secure for all of North Carolina’s public-school students access to an education that comes with a modest quality guarantee.
It’s a failure of civic duty cloaked in their homage to a legislative branch that has treated public education with contempt. Let Riggs, in the final lines of her opinion, sound what for many will have to serve as consolation amid their disappointment: “But tides will change, voters will reach a breaking point, and hope springs eternal that democratic demand for a different species of Court will soon produce results.”
