In Columbus City School District v. State of Ohio, (OH Com. Pl., June 224, 2025), an Ohio state trial court held that Ohio's school voucher program, known as EdChoice, is unconstitutional under the Ohio Constitution, Art. VI, Sec. 2 which provides:
The General Assembly shall secure a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state; but no religious or other sect, or sects, shall ever have any exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the school funds of this state.
The court said in part:
... EdChoice procedure mandates that payments be made directly from the State to private schools.... Where EdChoice participating private schools are inexplicably receiving double the per pupil state funding than public schools, it is difficult to say that EdChoice is simply a scholarship that follows and/or benefits the student as opposed to a system that benefits private schools.
Taken together, the evidence presented by the Plaintiffs supports their assertion that, in expanding the EdChoice program to its current form, the General Assembly has created a system of uncommon private schools by directly providing private schools with over $700 million in funding. This evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt that EdChoice violates Article VI Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution....
Despite receiving more funding in each successive year, the Plaintiffs’ public-school districts struggle to educate their students with inadequate funding.... Meanwhile, private religious schools receive EdChoice funding in addition to unknown amounts of non-public revenue. Such a system is not thorough and efficient. Thus, the Court finds that the Plaintiffs have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the EdChoice voucher program violates Article VI Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution....
... [A]n order determining that the EdChoice voucher program is unconstitutional because it bestows the exclusive right to, or control of, any part of the state’s school funds to one or more “religious or other sect, or sects” does not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment because the voucher program does not prohibit any religious organization from participating based on its religious viewpoint....
Viewing the term through Ohioans’ eyes in 1851, “sect” is not limited to religious groups, but refers to any person or collective of persons with like philosophy. As such, “other sect, or sects,” distinguishes from a “religious sect,” and refers to any non-religious group or groups...
Though the notes from the debates occurring during the 1850 Constitutional Convention demonstrate that the delegates were primarily concerned with religious sects attempting to control the school funds of the State, the plain language of this clause evidences their intent to prohibit any non-state actor, actors, entity, or entities from controlling school state funds....
Statehouse News Bureau reports on the decision.
