[JURIST] Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear [official profile] on Monday filed suit [complaint, PDF; press release] against Governor Matt Bevin over funding cuts to universities. Beshear is asking the court to block the governor’s recent order [press release], which immediately cut 4.5 percent of funding to public universities. Beshear argues that such an action was outside the scope of Bevin’s authority and that budgets from the governor were to serve more “advisory” purposes.

Education funding has led to numerous legal challenges across the US. The Supreme Court of Washington last August ordered [JURIST report] the state to pay a fine of $100,000 per day for each day that it fails to comply with a previous court ruling mandating adequate funding of public schools. Also last August the US Senate passed a bill [JURIST report] to revamp the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. The US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled [JURIST report] in July in favor of tight regulations pointed at the for-profit college industry. The court ruled that the Education Department has the right to demand that schools show that their graduates are financially dependent enough to repay their student loans. In August 2014 a judge for a Travis County Civil Court in Texas ruled [JURIST report] that the Texas legislature failed to meet its constitutional duty to provide for Texas public schools because the school finance system is structured, operated, and funded so that it cannot provide a constitutionally reasonable education for all Texas schoolchildren.