Justices Take Up Questions About Private School Contracts

A dispute between an elite Charlotte private school and parents who objected to its responses to the murder of George Floyd and the pandemic has put questions about private schools’ autonomy before the state Supreme Court.

The parents, prolific Republican donors Doug and Nicole Turpin, say that after they raised concerns about a “woke political agenda,” the school retaliated against them by expelling their two children, who had attended Charlotte Latin School since kindergarten. In their lawsuit, the couple claim that the school violated North Carolina’s Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act and defamed them, among several other allegations. 

If successful, the case could bring the family a windfall, as a state law says that parties proving an unfair or deceptive act are due three times actual compensatory damages. But a Mecklenburg County trial court judge dismissed nearly all of the Turpins’ claims in October 2022, and two of three judges on a Court of Appeals panel later affirmed that decision.

The Turpins’ attorney, Chris Edwards, argued in a brief to the state Supreme Court that if justices decided in favor of the school, “A private school’s discretion would know no bounds.” It would mean “private schools could expel children for any number of reasons—because they don’t like the parent’s personal worldview, political or religious affiliation, job, or family or social groups,” he wrote. 

Many private schools reserve such rights in the contracts they require parents to sign, as the nonprofit Public Schools First NC has highlighted. Lincolnton Christian School, for example, says in its student handbook that if “the atmosphere or conduct within a particular home” is not in line with “the biblical lifestyle the school teaches,” the school can refuse admission or discontinue enrollment.

Charlotte Latin’s Parent-School Partnership, a document incorporated into the contract, said the school “reserves the right to discontinue enrollment if it concludes that the actions of a parent/guardian make such a relationship impossible or seriously interfere with the School’s mission.”

Many of the questions in the case center on how the school, which charges as much as $35,000 in annual tuition, came to that conclusion with the Turpins. 

The couple say in their lawsuit that they objected to administrators stating in a June 2020 letter to parents and staff that the “principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion were foundational” and invoking the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” They also disapproved of a video series the school distributed that suggested it had benefited from white flight, books “that were pornographic and/or not age-appropriate,” and students being asked which pronouns they preferred. 

With like-minded parents, the Turpins organized a group called Refocus Latin, which was invited to give a presentation to an executive committee of the school’s board in August 2021, with assurances that no retaliation would result. At the end of the presentation, the complaint says, the board chair said that the board would not respond to the presentation or have further meetings about Charlotte Latin’s curriculum and culture. Parents were told to take issues up with administrators on an individual basis. 

A few days later, Doug Turpin raised concerns with the head of the middle school about a teacher “pushing a very left wing political viewpoint.” He said his son told him “concepts like White Privilege, White fragility, systemic racism, and other highly charged political concepts are being pushed on him in ways that leave him feeling like there is something wrong with him being white and he has something to be ashamed of for being born white.” The same teacher, he wrote, did not allow his son to pull down his mask to drink water or to go to the bathroom when he asked. Doug Turpin asked for a meeting with the middle school head about his concerns. At that meeting, he learned the school had decided to expel his children. 

Jennifer Van Zant, the attorney representing Charlotte Latin, told the justices during a hearing Wednesday that in choosing to send their child to a private school, “the Turpins both gained and forsook” some rights and freedoms by entering into a contract with the school. “That’s what a contract is,” she said. 

Now, she said, the Turpins want to modify the contract “to give them rights they did not bargain for.” 

She had her own warning for the court: Embracing the arguments made in a friend of the court brief jointly submitted by the Coalition For Liberty (a nonprofit Doug Turpin founded), two Republican members of Congress, 11 Republican members of the General Assembly, and several other nonprofits “would force judges into the business of regulating private schools.” 

The lawmakers and nonprofits advocated for applying the Unfair and Deceptive Trade Practices Act to private schools in the name of transparency, accountability, and leveling the playing field between schools and families. But the result instead would be “a tort minefield,” Van Zant said. “If a private school cannot have its contractual right to end a relationship without fear of tort liability, then private schools would turn into vanilla, one-size-fits-all experiences that avoid offending everyone and end up pleasing no one.”

In a friend of the court brief supporting Charlotte Latin, the N.C. Association of Independent Schools and the Southern Association of Independent Schools said parents are free to “vote with their feet.” They cautioned the justices that the Turpins’ strategy of “mischaracterizing the school’s exercise of its contractual right as ‘retaliation,’” if successful, “would allow parents to weaponize litigation (and litigation costs) whenever a school does not bend to the will of parents who disagree with the school’s mission.” 

The Catholic Diocese of Charlotte also weighed in, asking the justices to affirm the Court of Appeals decision throwing out the Turpins’ claims, which, it said, “both vindicates North Carolina contract law and preserves the constitutional autonomy of private religious schools like those operated by the Diocese.” 

The justices’ questions at the Wednesday hearing mostly focused on legal procedure—like whether it’s appropriate to append a contract to a motion to dismiss—rather than the implications for the private school sector, which has received huge public investment in recent years. In 2023, the General Assembly extended the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which offers vouchers to subsidize private school tuition, from low-income families to those of any income level. 

The result has been an explosion in spending. Last school year, the state spent $432 million on vouchers, according to data from the N.C. State Education Assistance Authority, which administers the program. Democrats have been critical of the program in part because it sends state funds to schools that can refuse students based on whatever terms they choose. 

Republican lawmakers, in a brief encouraging the Supreme Court to take up the case, said they expected more disputes between private schools and families due to the voucher program’s expansion. Not all private schools accept vouchers; Charlotte Latin is among those that do not.

At least one justice signaled openness to engaging the Turpins’ arguments. “If we were to say this contract required good faith, fair dealing, and that there in the contract is a safe space for a parent to convey to school administration their concerns, and then, despite that, there is retaliation—why does that not get to an unfair or deceptive act?” Chief Justice Paul Newby asked the school’s attorney. 

She responded that the expulsions were not retaliation but rather a direct consequence of Doug Turpin’s persistent complaints, even after school administrators told him they would no longer engage on certain issues. She said Doug Turpin wrote in emails that “parents are in the unenviable position of having to rethink whether Latin is the right choice for them” and “alumni are not going to be giving their money.”

Edwards, the Turpins’ attorney, picked up on Newby’s questions in his final remarks and asked the Supreme Court to send the case to a lower court for further fact-finding. “I think somebody needs to figure out whether or not Mr. Turpin was being overbearing or whether or not Mr. Turpin was being a concerned parent,” he said. 

It could be months before the justices issue an opinion. In the meantime, Doug Turpin has been pressuring lawmakers to put more constraints on schools. His nonprofit, the Coalition For Liberty, bills itself as “leading a legal counter-offensive against cancel culture.” The organization said in its 2023 tax form that it was “working with legislators to create new legislation to protect children from harassment, intimidation, or expulsion for improper reasons.”

In 2024, Doug Turpin gave $45,000 to the N.C. Republican Party; $5,275 to Brad Overcash, chair of the state Senate’s Education/Higher Education Committee; $3,200 to Tricia Cotham, chair of the state House’s K-12 Education Committee and Education Appropriations; and $10,500 to David Willis, another chair of the same two House committees, according to data compiled by the nonprofit OpenSecrets. 

Clarification: This story has been updated to make it clear that Charlotte Latin does not accept vouchers.