The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to eliminate tenure for teachers who obtained it prior to the repeal of the tenure law in 2013. Associate Justice Bob Edmunds writes,
We conclude that repeal of the Career Status Law unlawfully infringes upon the contract rights of those teachers who had already achieved career status. As a result, we hold that sections 9.6 and 9.7 are unconstitutional, though only to the extent that the Act retroactively applies to teachers who had attained career status as of 26 July 2013.
The North Carolina Association of Educators sued the state, arguing that eliminating tenure (also called “career status”) was a breach of contract that violated Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 19 of the North Carolina Constitution. The NC Supreme Court agreed that it violated the U.S. Constitution.
That said, this ruling does not restore tenure rights to teachers hired after 2013.
Oh, I should mention that Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office actually defended the state in this case!
