“In the Rodriguez case, Demetrio Rodriguez and six other
parents of children who attended school in the poor, overwhelmingly Mexican
American Edgewood section of San Antonio filed suit in federal court arguing
that the Texas funding system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.” (Sracic 1)
The question would arise as to how best to equalize
education. The well off would be protected by laws that ensure the rich to
maintain their wealth. However the indigent poor would be at the mercy of
historically racist state policies, ex. Jim Crow.
In Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) the Supreme Court
ruled that laws attempting to ban private education was a violation of the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Again reiterating that the
amendment which called for the citizenship of black people, in the wake of the
Civil War, would be used, ironically, for those who have never endured
discrimination and injustice.
In Cummings v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court
heard a challenge by a group of African American parents in Georgia when the
school board cut off funds for a segregated black high school. The Court
decided in favor of the school board. Curiously enough the author of the
Court’s opinion in Cummings, Justice John Marshall Harlan, had three years
earlier authored a famous dissent in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
Justice Harlan claimed that the Constitution is color-blind and that the
Louisiana statute was based “on the ground that colored citizens are so
inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches
occupied by white citizens.” (Scracic 9) It would seem that along with
legislation such as Jim Crow, Supreme Court justices would hold onto antiquated
perspectives on race. And strangely enough would open lanes for whites to use
an amendment created to help people of color, whom have been historically
disenfranchised.
One way that states got around mandatory laws (de jure) and
enforcing Supreme Court rulings such as Brown V. Board, was to allow
gerrymandering and redistricting (de facto), making it impossible for people of
color to collectively escape poverty. “Although there was no Texas law that said
Mexican Americans could not attend the same schools as white students, school
district lines were drawn around existing neighborhoods; since neighborhoods
were (effectively though not legally) segregated, so were the schools.” (Sracic
10) In addition Deed restrictions in many areas prevented houses being sold to
Mexican Americans, African Americans, or Native Americans, including those of
mixed race.
Miraculously these Mexican- AMERICANS would organize like
many ethnic groups in this great country, to better the situation for their
people and create a better America. “In 1929, Texan attorney Alonso Perales
formed the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) to focus on civil
rights concerns including the problem of education.” The GI Forum was also
established in 1948 and their motto was “education is freedom and freedom
should be everyone’s business.” (Sracic 12)
And in 1968 the Mexican American civil right organization,
the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) was formed by
Pete Tijerina, a lawyer who worked for LULAC. This organization was similar to
that of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
In search of a solution to the penniless budgets of
predominately Mexican American districts, the groups came up with The Minimum
Foundation Program, where a base number of dollars would be established and
plans made to close the education gap. The effort to bridge the gap was well
intended but a band-aid nonetheless.
In Serrano v. Priest the California Supreme Court had
declared that state’s school financing systems to be inconsistent with the
demands of both the federal and situational infirmity was the direct result of
California justices, this dual constitutional infirmity was the direct result
of California making “the quality of a child’s education depend upon the
resources of his school district and ultimately upon the pocketbook of his
parents.” Since this was nearly identical to the issue raised in Rodriguez, it
made sense for Greider [journalist] to search for a precedent in the former.
This led him to an individual who played a critical role in all of the early
school funding litigation: John E. Coons, who was at the time a law professor
at the University at California at Berkeley.
(Sracic 17)
“Whether a student attended a well-funded school was to a
large degree dependent on the property wealth of the district in which he or
she resided. This was a form of inequality, he [Professor Coons] thought, that
might have constitutional significance.” (Sracic 17)
In McInnis v. Shapiro, 1968, Illinois district court ruled
against a group of Cook County students who had argued that the Illinois school
funding system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Students in Edgewood, Texas took action on May 16, 1968, as
400 students at Edgewood High School decided to stage a walk-out. Demetrio
Rodriguez for who the case was named, was a parent, member of the GI Forum as
well as LULAC. He with 5 other parents processed the suit. “Although Edgewood had the
highest property tax rate in the San Antonio area, the district had only been
able to raise about $26 per student. In the nearby community of Alamo Heights,
a much lower tax rate yielded $333 per student. (Sracic 22)
In Hobson v. Hansen (1967), Judge Wright ruled in favor of
the plaintiff, Hobson, issuing an injunction that barred the District of
Columbia from engaging in either racial or economic discrimination and ordering
the district to integrate in schools and to dismantle both the track system and
the optional district provision that had exacerbated segregation. Gochman,
representing the parents of Edgewood, was interested in Wright’s opinion
because of the way in which Judge had combined the notions of racial and
economic discrimination. Judge Berger
dissented in the case. (Sracic 26)
“Powell’s opinion in Rodruguez helped to construct
boundaries regarding the Fourteenth Amendment that remain in place to this day.
Together, the strict scrutiny and rational basis test form
the two tiers of scrutiny available to those, like the plaintiffs in Rodriguez,
who would bring challenges under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The two- tier approach also governs some decisions under the Fifth
Amendment since—following its decision in Bolling v. Sharpe (1954)—the Supreme
Court has recognized an equal protection component within the Due Process
Clause of the amendment. (Sracic 32)
Justice William Douglas, writing for the Court in the 1966
case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, suggested that ‘lines drawn on
the basis of wealth or poverty, like those of race, are traditionally
disfavored.’ Toward the end of his tenure as chief justice, Earl Warren had
relied on Harper when he concluded in McDonald v. Board of Election
Commissioners of Chicago (1969) that classifications based on wealth or race
were ‘highly suspect’. (Sracic 34)
Gochman explained to the court ‘that under the Fourteenth
Amendment the courts will tolerate differences relating to people that are in
the same category, historically, but that the courts will not tolerate
differences where there has been historical discrimination as stated in Hobson
v. Hansen, that the courts will look closely at discrimination if it involves
the poor or minority groups.” (Sracic 38)
In McInnis v. Shapiro (1968) students from Cook County,
Illinois, brought a suit against Governor Shapiro. The students claimed that
the education funding laws in Illinois violated the Fourteenth Amendment
“because they [permitted] wide variations in the expenditures per student from
district to district, thereby providing some students with a good education and
depriving others, who have equal or greater educational need.” On November 15,
1968, a three judge district court ruled unanimously against the students. If
Gochman expected to win in district court, he would have to be able to
distinguish Rodriguez from McInnis. The fact that, unlike Hobson, McInnis did
not involve a racial element might be crucial. (Sracic 38-39)
Unanimously, the judges decided that the Texas school
funding system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. (Sracic 60) This most likely had to do with the fact that race and class were determinate factors
Justice Powell, who worked in Virginia and had a
comprehensive background in educational politics both local and state, was the
“education justice” on the bench when the appeal was filed, and he would take a
special interest in the case, hiring many law clerks and keeping them abreast
with frequent memos regarding his perspective.
Charles Allen Wright would argue the appeal for the State of
Texas and the city of San Antonio.
In Bullock v. Carter (1972) Bullock was a challenge to a
Texas law that required a substantial filing fee to be paid by candidates
seeking to have their name placed on a ballot in that state. This law was found
to discriminate against those who were poor to pay the fee, and the Court used
a version of the strict scrutiny standard to overturn the requirement. (Sracic
82) However in the Edgewood case it was harder to illustrate the complex web of
institutional racism that lead to a district of poor, under-represented Mexican
Americans. To make a court decision was going to be difficult. With regard to
Rodriguez Justice Berger ended his summary with an interesting confession: He
claimed that he would support a constitutional amendment that would achieve the
result reached by the three-judge court in Texas. Without that amendment,
however, he thought the Constitution simply did not address the issue of school
funding. (Sracic 93)
Justice Byron White, from Colorado, a former Rhodes Scholar,
and winner of Heisman trophy in football claimed: “Rather than demanding
absolute equality in funding, White thought that the Court should be clear in
endorsing a system like district power equalizing that would not mandate
equality but would free up districts that wanted to provide more for their
students.” (Sracic 95) a sort of opportunity for community agency and not
futile discriminatory policies.
Powell explained that although he had ‘no doubts about the
importance of education—especially in a democracy,” education was ‘not
guaranteed’ by the Constitution. (Sracic 96)
“Rehnquist explained that the accepted history of the Equal
Protection Clause was that it was only intended to eliminate discrimination
based on race.” (Sracic 98) and not wealth, no matter how mutually constitutive
the two were.
March 21, 1973, Powell in majority opinion stated: We disagree
with the District Court, and reverse its judgment.” (Sracic 110)
Powell brought up Brown v. Board of Education as a possible
precedent for a different outcome. Although the Court was surely right to order
desegregation, said Powell, there are—there have to be—stopping points.”
Rodriguez was that stopping point. (Sracic 113) Arguably because Brown V. Board
did not overtly called for a redistribution of funds, rather access to a
historically disenfranchised group.
Powell’s finding that the right to an education was neither
‘explicitly or implicitly’ protected by the constitution, coupled with his
earlier determination that Texas had not created a suspect classification,
meant that the proper test to be applied to Rodriguez was the rational basis
standard. (Sracic)
“Powell’s background on the Richmond School Board played
into his analysis. He concluded from his own experience that local control over
the schools was real and not a ‘mere sham’ as Justice Marshall [Thurgood] had
asserted in his dissenting opinion.” (Sracic 116)
In dissent was Brennan, Marshall, White, Douglass
In approval was Powell, Rehnquist, Stewart, Chief Berger,
Blackmun
Marshall claimed “wealth was as immutable as race; also, the
poverty into which children were born—through no fault of their own—closely
resembled the hardships and stigma faced by illegitimate children recognized in
Powell’s opinion in Aetna v. Weber Casualty and Surety Company (1972).
Furthermore, Marshall wrote ‘it is the State that has created the local school
districts, and tied educational funding to the local property tax and thereby
local district wealth.” (Sracic 121)
Bibliography:
San Antonio v. Rodriguez: The Pursuit of Equal Education,
The Debate Over Discrimination and School Funding by Paul A. Sracic
published by University Press of Kansas 2006
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