Education, Race, and Class in the Supreme Court

Today was one of those days where all classes ran together. Con Law II featured an impressive discussion about San Antonio v. Rodriguez. We discussed the error of the court in not finding education to be a fundamental right; also, not recognizing the poor as a suspect or quasi-suspect class as fundamentally ridiculous. There was an enormous focus on whether poor people could be seen as a discrete and insular minority. Let’s take a moment to briefly review how the court defines the terms “discrete” and “insular.”

Insularity- the fact that the group has experienced forms of discrimination that has cut it off from the sympathy or the empathy of the mainstream. The separation has diminished the group’s ability to access the political processes in ways that other groups access them.

Discreteness- physical characteristics that can allow you to identify them for purposes of marginalizing them and if they can blend into the mainstream and can protect themselves from the prejudices and biases as the main stream. Often times, the court uses this term interchangeably with “immutable.”

Most would agree that poor people in America have faced forms of discrimination. The difficulty lies in the fact that almost every economic or social policy our legislation makes effects socioeconomic classes differently. So deciding when legislation has discriminated against a lower economic class in a way that makes in unconstitutional presents quite the judicial challenge.

Later, in Literacy and Law, we also brought up San Antonio v. Rodriguez. We discussed how education is the precursor to the ability to utilize constitutionally protected rights as well as taking an active role in our political process. We discussed the roles of schools in establishing classes because resources means social commodity and schools with lower resources inherently provide their learners with less social commodity. The less social commodity one has as an emerging citizen, the more stigmatized that person is in a group and therefore discriminated against. I find it difficult to separate race and class based on immutability. For instance, if a poor mountain boy from Appalachia interviews for a job in the nearest city, the interviewer is immediately going to know where he is from and what his socioeconomic background is. Yes, it is feasible (with vast resources) to teach him to speak “without” an accent, teach him the social graces and strategies when interacting in an urban professional environment, give him the right clothes, knowledge of the right social and consumer topics, and the vocabulary to have dinner with the boss or his colleagues. To me, it is not much different than telling an African American that she *could* relax and dye her hair, done contacts, and go through skin bleaching processes. Perhaps poverty itself is changeable, but class is not without bountiful resources (something the poorer classes lack) and questionable demands for homogenization. Class and income are inexorably interlinked, and its flawed reasoning on the courts behalf to deny such a plain truth. Therefore, the system of funding public schools according to property taxes is inherently violative of the Equal Protection Clause. In a couple sentences, here’s why:

In poorer areas, the properties must be taxed at a higher rate than the rich areas to get the basic needs because each property has much less value. Even considering this, the richer properties pay less than the poorer properties but still end up with disproportionately higher amounts of money per child in the public school system. To illustrate, allow me to quote from San Antonio v. Rodriguez:

“The school district in which appellees reside, the Edgewood Independent School District, has been compared throughout this litigation with the Alamo Heights Independent School District. This comparison between the least and most affluent districts in the San Antonio area serves to illustrate the manner in which the dual system of finance operates and to indicate the extent to which substantial disparities exist despite the State's impressive progress in recent years. Edgewood is one of seven public school districts in the metropolitan area. Approximately 22,000 students are enrolled in its 25 elementary and secondary schools. The district is situated in the core-city sector of San Antonio in a residential neighborhood that has little commercial or industrial property. The residents are predominantly of Mexican-American descent: approximately 90% of the student population is Mexican-American and over 6% is Negro. The average assessed property value per pupil is $5,960 - the lowest in the metropolitan area -- and the median family income ($4,686) is also the lowest. At an equalized tax rate of $1.05 per $100 of assessed property -- the highest in the metropolitan area -- the district contributed $26 to the education of each child for the 1967-1968 school year above its Local Fund Assignment for the Minimum Foundation Program. The Foundation Program contributed $222 per pupil for a state-local total of $248. Federal funds added another $108 for a total of $356 per pupil.

Alamo Heights is the most affluent school district in San Antonio. Its six schools, housing approximately 5,000 students, are situated in a residential community quite unlike the Edgewood District. The school population is predominantly "Anglo," having only 18% Mexican-Americans and less than 1% Negroes. The assessed property value per pupil exceeds $49,000, and the median family income is $8,001. In 1967-1968 the local tax rate of $.85 per $100 of valuation yielded $333 per pupil over $225 provided from that Program, the district was able to supply $558 per student. Supplemented by a $ 36 per-pupil grant from federal sources, Alamo Heights spent $594 per pupil.”