SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah judge ruled the Utah Fits All Scholarship Program was unconstitutional in a decision delivered Friday, leaving thousands of children who were beneficiaries of the program in limbo.
Gov. Spencer Cox said Friday the state would appeal the ruling, as legislative proponents of the program reacted angrily to the judge’s decision.
The state was sued by the Utah Education Association, along with plaintiffs Kevin Labresh, Terra Cooper, Amy Barton and Carol Lear, in 2023, after the voucher program was enacted. The Utah Fits All Scholarship Program gives eligible K-12 students up to $8,000 a year for private school tuition and other costs. It went into effect in the fall of 2024.
The teachers’ union argued the program violated the Utah Constitution because it diverts income tax revenue to fund private schools. Third District Judge Laura Scott agreed with the union and other plaintiffs, saying the program violated sections of the state constitution that require the state to fund a public education system open to every student that is free of charge and to use state income tax to fund public schools and to support children and people with disabilities.
In her decision, Scott said that “because the program is a legislatively created, publicly funded education program aimed at elementary and secondary education, it must satisfy the constitutional requirements applicable to the ‘public education system’ set forth in the Utah Constitution. The Legislature does not have plenary authority to circumvent these constitutional requirements by simply declining to ‘designate’ the program as part of the public education system.”
Proponents of the program argued the program did not affect the state’s system of public schools, but was in addition to that constitutional requirement, and that it cleared the bar of using income tax to support children.
Utah Attorney General Derek Brown said his office is “actively reviewing the ruling and assessing the state’s next steps.”
Cox said the state was reviewing the ruling and “preparing to appeal.”
“While we are disappointed in the court’s decision on the Utah Fits All program, our commitment to Utah families and their right to make choices about their children’s education remains unchanged,” he said.
In a statement released after the decision, UEA President Renee Pinkney said Scott’s ruling protects the promise of a public education.
“The UEA stood up to unconstitutional private religious school vouchers, defended our public schools and won,” she said.
State Rep. Candice Pierucci, one of the primary legislative architects of the scholarship program, called the judge’s decision “judicial activism.”
“The Utah State Constitution states that ‘parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children.’ This past year, thousands of families have had access to the Utah Fits All Scholarship Program to customize their child’s learning experience.
“The decision made by Judge Scott is judicial activism; it is not the job of judiciary to set policy on the bench and infuse personal opinion and ideology into their decisions. We are not done fighting this fight and will appeal this decision to the Utah Supreme Court,” she said.
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