Plyler v. Doe

Summary

In May 1975 the Texas Legislature amended Section 21.031 of its Education Code to withhold state funds for educating children who had not been legally admitted to the United States and to allow local districts to deny them enrollment. In 1977 the Tyler Independent School District in Smith County began charging such children tuition. A class action filed that September on behalf of school-age children of Mexican origin, identified in court by the pseudonym Doe, named Superintendent James Plyler and the board; Judge William Wayne Justice enjoined the policy, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed. A second set of suits from across the state was consolidated in Houston as In re Alien Children Education Litigation, where the law was again held invalid. The question was whether Texas could, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, deny undocumented children the free public education it provided to citizens and lawfully admitted residents. The families argued that the children were persons within the state's jurisdiction, that they bore no responsibility for their status, and that denying them schooling would inflict lasting harm without serving any substantial purpose. Texas argued that persons who entered unlawfully were not within its jurisdiction for equal protection purposes, that education is not a fundamental right under San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), and that the state could rationally preserve limited school funds for lawful residents. On 15 June 1982 the Court affirmed, five to four. Justice Brennan held first that undocumented aliens are persons within a state's jurisdiction and protected by the Equal Protection Clause. He agreed that they are not a suspect class and that education is not a constitutional right, but held that a law imposing a lifetime hardship on children not accountable for their status, by denying them basic education, must further a substantial state interest. Texas's interests in deterring immigration, protecting school quality and serving children likely to remain in the state were not shown to be furthered by the law. Justice Powell, concurring, stressed the unique combination of innocent children and the denial of education and acknowledged the exasperation of Texans facing problems the federal government had not solved. Chief Justice Burger, for four dissenters, wrote that he would not make Texas's choice as a legislator, but that the Court had created a novel standard to correct what was a policy question for Congress and the states. The library text contains Brennan's opinion with excerpts of the Powell concurrence and the Burger dissent; the separate concurrences of Justices Marshall and Blackmun are omitted, as are the notes. Plyler has not been overruled. In 1994 California voters approved Proposition 187, which included a provision barring undocumented children from public schools; a federal district court enjoined it as inconsistent with Plyler, and the state later abandoned its appeal.

Top Lessons

• Who is a person within the jurisdiction?

  Texas argued that people who entered unlawfully were not within its jurisdiction. Brennan answered from the text and history of the Fourteenth Amendment that the phrase covers everyone physically subject to a state's laws, and the dissent agreed on this point. The disagreement lay elsewhere, in how closely the Court should examine the law.

• Responsibility and the children of lawbreakers

  Brennan distinguished the children from their parents, who had chosen to enter unlawfully. Drawing on cases about children born outside marriage, he reasoned that penalizing children for their parents' conduct is contrary to basic ideas of individual responsibility. Burger replied that the children's status was not immutable and that the analogy was misleading.

• A standard between the usual tests

  After Rodriguez, education was not a fundamental right and undocumented status was not a suspect class, which would normally mean rational-basis review. Brennan nevertheless required that the law further a substantial state interest. Supporters saw a sensible response to an unusual combination of facts; Burger saw a new standard assembled for a single case.

• Policy and constitutional law

  Burger wrote that he would not choose Texas's policy as a legislator, and Powell acknowledged the frustration of Texas officials. Both separated the wisdom of a law from its constitutionality, though they reached different results. The case invites students to notice when judges distinguish what they think best from what the Constitution requires.

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Medical Lens

The opinions concern school enrollment and state funding for children not legally admitted to the country, with no medical subject matter.