On Friday, Alaska unanimously reversed a lower court ruling that had ruled that state funding of Alaska’s correspondence school programs was unconstitutional.
Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman said that, on its face, the correspondence school funding in Alaska was unconstitutional.
On Thursday the Supreme Court heard the arguments, and said the plaintiffs failed in their attempts to challenge the law.
“We reverse the superior court’s ruling that AS 14.03.300-.310 are facially unconstitutional. When a court rules a statute facially unconstitutional, it strikes down the statute in its entirety.5 By contrast, a court may rule a statute unconstitutional as applied to a certain set of facts, while leaving the statute in effect as applied to other scenarios. Plaintiffs face a high bar when trying to show that a statute should be ruled facially unconstitutional.”
Judge Zeman’s ruling was about to go into effect after it had been postponed from immediately being effective. He set June 30 as the effective date for his ruling, giving the Alaska Supreme Court and the State’s attorneys little time to pull together their case to defend the individualized learning that over 24,000 Alaska students use.
By not extending the stay, Zeman said that the Dunleavy Administration was not likely to win its appeal.
“Accordingly, this Court finds that a limited stay is the best solution to ensure that students, families, and school districts are protected from undue disruption and all parties are protected from unnecessary uncertainty and related harms. A limited stay until the end of the fiscal year will ensure that any correspondence allotments that were taken in reliance on AS 14.03.300-310, will be honored, while minimizing the potential for continued unfettered unconstitutional spending,” Zeman had written.
But Zeman was wrong and the Alaska Supreme Court said so in plain language in its reversal of Zeman’s ruling.
Taking a loss as an attorney for the plaintiffs was political lawyer Scott Kendall. As the court put it, “there are many constitutionally permissible uses of allotment funds. The parties all seem to agree that school districts can approve the use of allotment funds by students enrolled in correspondence study to purchase books, computers, and art supplies from private businesses. And the parties seem to agree that allotment funds can be spent on martial arts classes at a private gym and pottery lessons at an artist’s studio.”
Further, the Supreme Court said, “None of these uses of allotment funds entails a ‘direct benefit’ to a ‘religious or other private educational institution.’”
For those reasons, the Court decided unanimously to “reverse both the superior court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Alexander and its denial of the State’s motion to dismiss.”
The court decided to not rule on the issue of private school tuition and the justices complimented the filers of the amicus briefs on behalf of the correspondence students around the state.
Read the ruling here:
