Education: A Fundamental Value, Not a Fundamental Right?

By Sofia Fernandez '28

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Throughout American history, the Supreme Court has strived to protect and maintain equality and students’ rights in the education system. Despite the policies, regulations, and departments established to protect education, the United States Constitution does not recognize it as a constitutional right. Throughout the past 200 years of cases, the Supreme Court has upheld this idea. As a result of the holding of the landmark case San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), the rejection of education as a fundamental right has given this power to the states, with federal oversight to maintain equal protection. (1) 

According to the Texas system of school financing in the 1960s, the funding of the school districts was dependent on tax revenues. Therefore, due to the weak tax base of Edgewood Independent School District and surrounding districts, the education of the students in those districts suffered. (2) Their insufficient funding led to poor infrastructure, unqualified teachers, and inadequate resources within their district’s education system. In 1968, the Edgewood Concerned Parent Association, formed by Demetrio Rodriguez, brought a claim to court against this issue on the basis that education was a fundamental right and the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited the current system of finance. (3) 

At the local and lower levels of the court, the court ruled with Rodriguez. However, when the case was brought to the Supreme Court, a 5-4 vote between the judges left the ruling in the school district’s favor. Their primary holding concluded that property taxes funding public schools did not violate the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment. Ultimately, it was ruled that, according to the Constitution, education is not a fundamental right. (4) 

Not only does this ruling affect how education is addressed in courts, but it also determines how the 10th and 14th Amendments are interpreted. The 10th Amendment states that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (5) Therefore, as education is not included in the Constitution, it is reserved for the power of the states and not the federal government. (6) However, considering the 14th Amendment where “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” the federal government may have oversight over education to ensure these rights are preserved. (7) The federal government must protect the individual rights of United States citizens without overreaching their allocated power and infringing upon the states’ rights. Therefore, since San Antonio Independent School District v Rodriguez was established upon a right delegated to the states, the federal government could not intercede. 

With this precedent, the duality of these Amendments can be seen in Edgewood ISD v. Kirby, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) (1984). (8) This case further argued the faults of Texas’s school funding system by identifying discriminatory practices that led to low-income students (who were typically Mexican-American) receiving a poor education, rather than claiming that there is a constitutional right to education. Since San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez was unable to resolve inadequate education at a federal level, the power being granted to the states, the plaintiff shifted their approach to focus on the Texas state court. Therefore, it was argued that this school funding system was racially discriminatory, violating Article 7 Section 1 of The Texas Constitution, which states that “a general diffusion of knowledge being essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people.” (9) In a unanimous decision, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of MALDEF, deeming these disparities unfair and requiring legislative adjustments by 1990. Notably, the decision was not made based on education but rather on equal protection, specifically based on race. (10) Ultimately, the “right to education” can not be argued in court; however, through the 14th Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, “educational rights” can still be challenged throughout the American court system. 

This idea may seem counterintuitive, considering the Department of Education and the government's push for equal and adequate education. Nonetheless, state constitutions and governmental acts seek to protect education, even if it is not deemed a fundamental right. For example, Lyndon B. Johnson established the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965 to provide equal educational opportunities for all students by supplying federal funding and resources to the states. (11) In 2015, Barack Obama reauthorized the ESEA as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to maintain this national education law and equalize educational opportunities. (12) These acts do not directly control education but provide federal oversight and aid to state education systems. For direct control, every state constitution is mandated to establish a public school system. These vary from state to state and include policies regarding tenure, accommodations, discipline, curricula, graduation requirements, and more. (13) Therefore, although there has been a shift towards a greater emphasis on the federal government’s protection through the 14th Amendment, there is no direct federal oversight but rather indirect assistance through the allocation of funds. (14) 

Therefore, states have the responsibility to ensure sufficient primary and secondary education, even though the Constitution does not encapsulate education as a fundamental right. The private school system should not need to be abolished to ensure that the state governments maintain an adequate public education system from kindergarten through twelfth grade. However, this should not confine states to meet a federal requirement but rather create policies appropriate to their population and standardize them across their districts and counties. State leaders best understand the context of their local education environments. This focus on local control would further promote the protection of parental rights, maintain state sovereignty, and best fit the needs of the people. Ultimately, states should allocate the appropriate funding without relying on federal funding to ensure education is available and protected at the state level. 

Endnotes

1. JUSTIA, San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973), Justia Law (1973), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/411/1/.

2. Ibid. 

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. U.S. Constitution - Tenth Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress, constitution.congress.gov, https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-10/.

6. Sarah Boyce, THE OBSOLESCENCE OF SAN ANTONIO V. RODRIGUEZ IN THE WAKE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S QUEST TO LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND, 61 Duke Law Journal (2012); Brendan Pelsue, When it Comes to Education, the Federal Government is in Charge of ... Um, What? | Harvard Graduate School of Education, www.gse.harvard.edu (2017), https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/ed-magazine/17/08/when-it-comes-education-federal-government-charge-um-what.

7. Congress, U.S. Constitution - Fourteenth Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress, Congress.gov (1868), https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/.

8. MALDEF, MALDEF’S Landmark Fight for Education Equality in Texas | MALDEF (2021), https://www.maldef.org/2021/01/maldef-landmark-fight-for-education-equality-in-texas/.

9. THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION ARTICLE 7. EDUCATION, Texas.gov (2011), https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CN/htm/CN.7.htm.

10. MALDEF, MALDEF’S Landmark Fight for Education Equality in Texas | MALDEF, MALDEF (2021), https://www.maldef.org/2021/01/maldef-landmark-fight-for-education-equality-in-texas/.

11. U.S. Department of Education, The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), U.S. Department of Education (2015), https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/laws-preschool-grade-12-education/esea.

12. Ibid.

13. State Court Report, Education, State Court Report (2023), https://statecourtreport.org/issues/education.

14. Brendan Pelsue, When it Comes to Education, the Federal Government is in Charge of ... Um, What? | Harvard Graduate School of Education, www.gse.harvard.edu (2017), https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/ed-magazine/17/08/when-it-comes-education-federal-government-charge-um-what.