NASHVILLE – A legal opinion from Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery says a proposed amendment to the Tennessee Constitution regarding public school funding would not adversely impact the state’s equal protection provisions.
The opinion was requested by Rep. Bill Dunn. The Knoxville Republican’s proposed amendment changes a section requiring state lawmakers to provide for the maintenance and support of a “system of free public schools.” Dunn believes the change would allow lawmakers to spend what they feel is needed on education.
Critics say that change could run afoul of equal protection and due process provisions in the constitution. Slatery’s opinion disagrees.
Slatery writes that the proposed amendment “does not change the meaning of the public schools clause” in the state constitution nor the General Assembly’s mandate “to determine how to provide for free public education in Tennessee pursuant to the public schools clause.”
Successful school-funding lawsuits in the 1990s and early 2000s, in which smaller, largely rural systems complained they were treated unfairly by the state, were based on equal protection language in the state and U.S. Constitution.