NCAE Files Lawsuit Challenging Opportunity Scholarship Program | Eastern NC Now

Publisher's note: The author of this post is Terry Stoops for the John Locke Foundation.

    Despite a 2015 decision by the N.C. Supreme Court affirming the constitutionality of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, teacher unions filed a new complaint today. They argue:

• 2. The Program sends millions of taxpayer dollars to private schools without imposing any meaningful educational requirements. As implemented, many of the Program's funds are directed to schools that divide communities on religious lines, disparage many North Carolinians' faiths and identities, and coerce families into living under religious dictates.
• The Program as implemented funds discrimination on the basis of religion. Families' ability to participate in the Program is limited by their religious beliefs and their willingness to cede control of their faith to a religious school.
• The Program as implemented funds schools that discriminate against students and parents based on who they love or the gender they know themselves to be, and against those with religious beliefs that do not condemn homosexuality, bisexuality, or gender non-conformity.

    Attorneys from Patterson Harkavy are counsel for the plaintiffs, which include the current president of the North Carolina Association of Educators and the outgoing vice president of the teacher union.