Today Americas experiment in integrated education came to an end. Today the Supreme Court upheld Arizona’s Tax voucher system in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn. The statute allowed Arizona tax payers to make donations to school tuition organization while filing their taxes. Any amount, up to $1000 (for a married couple) given, would then provide a dollar for dollar reduction in the State income tax due. These STO’s would then decide how much money to give to applying students for enrollment in private school. Expressly upheld are religious based STOs that restrict scholarships to members of the sponsoring church.
Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn
(See Section B. Section A rules on procedural grounds while B upholds the program).
It’s clear the Supreme Court has never lived in the Deep South. The court has never seen towns where all the White children go to a private school while minority students attend a drastically underfunded public school. Nor has the court, apparently, seen churches that are all Black or all White (an arrangement which describes most protestant assemblies in the Deep South).
The Court’s ruling today will allow the wholesale defunding of public schools and the channeling of funds into separate schools based on loosely disguised racial factors. To be completely clear this ruling allows state to cut funds to public schools while channeling that money to private intermediate organization which will then decide on which student the funds are spent. This differs from vouchers in which all students are entitled to the same amount of funding.
The private character of these STOs makes enforcement of civil rights laws difficult if not impossible. The result of this will be a game of racial whack-a-mole. If one STO is found to act in a racial discriminatory way, a new organization with vaguely change guidelines can quickly be established. The private character of these organizations further vests their leadership with extreme power in deciding who will receive an education.
Under Brown v. Board the State has, until today, had an obligation to educate all students equally and together. The State cannot assign individual dollar amounts to each student and ask parents to pay the difference. Under Arizona Christian this is no longer the case. A STO can assign whatever scholarship value it wants to each student. Is some member of the community an outspoken liberal? No education money of their kid. In effect this decision commoditize education and allows local power brokers to dole it out as they see fit.
Congress must act immediately to overturn this decision. American education is already in a sorry state, if this is not stopped it will eventually destroy the country.
-edit: Just to be clear this is a 1:1 tax break available to all AZ taxpayers. Say for example you don't have a kid and owe the state $1000 in taxes, you can send that $1000 to a STO and will then owe the state $0 in taxes.
-edit: Some of the comments have indicated that they believe this case only rules on standing. While the direct holding relates to standing the court also comments on the constitutionality of this system.
Resisting this conclusion, respondents suggest that Arizonans who benefit from §43–1089 tax credits in effectare paying their state income tax to STOs. In respondents’ view, tax credits give rise to standing even if tax deductions do not, since only the former yield a dollar-fordollar reduction in final tax liability. See Brief for Respondent Winn et al. 5–6; Tr. of Oral Arg. 35–36. But what matters under Flast is whether sectarian STOs receive government funds drawn from general tax revenues, so that moneys have been extracted from a citizen and handed to a religious institution in violation of the citizen’s conscience. Under that inquiry, respondents’ argument fails. Like contributions that lead to charitable tax deductions, contributions yielding STO tax credits are not owed to the State and, in fact, pass directly from taxpayers to private organizations. Respondents’ contrary position assumes that income should be treated as if it were government property even if it has not come into the tax collector’s hands. That premise finds no basis in standing jurisprudence. Private bank accounts cannot be equated with the Arizona State Treasury.