NC appeals court rules who will hear education voucher suit

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A legal challenge to North Carolina's taxpayer-funded scholarship program for K-12 children to attend private schools — focused on claims of bias based on religion and sexuality — must be heard by three trial judges, the state Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday.

The majority on an appeals court panel reversed last year's decision by Wake County Superior Court Judge Bryan Collins, who ruled the lawsuit filed by several North Carolina parents in 2020 should remain before a single judge.

Republican legislators defending the “Opportunity Scholarship Program” created in 2013 appealed Collins' decision, saying three Superior Court judges are required to hear the case because the litigation was seeking to throw out the program in its entirety on grounds it violates the state constitution.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit have said the scholarships are lawful in some formats but unconstitutional as carried out in each of their individual circumstances, so only a single judge should preside. For example, some plaintiffs are in same-sex marriages who say they’re being discriminated against because some private religious schools benefiting from student grants oppose LGBTQ rights or expel openly-gay students.

The scholarships are considered one of the chief education policy accomplishments for Republicans at the General Assembly since they took control of the legislature over a decade ago. Nearly 23,000 students in low- and middle-income families received awards during the last school year, and over $63 million in grants are being disbursed this school year, according to program data.

Program opponents include Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the North Carolina Association of Educators, which describes the awards as vouchers.

The General Assembly agreed in the 2000s to start using panels of three...