ABSTRACT

In Rodriguez the Court considered whether significant differences in funding between Texas public school districts violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the Court addressed the issue of whether education is a fundamental right that must be provided equally to all students, regardless of a school district’s economic health. In a 5-4 decision, the majority held that education is not a fundamental right and that wealth is not a suspect class requiring the Court to scrutinize a state’s educational funding scheme. In so ruling, the Court failed to recognize the direct relationship between funding and the quality of education received, and thereby gave the green light to local and state governments to provide lesser educations to students located in poorer school districts. The Court’s decision is regrettable,

as it significantly narrowed the Court’s commitment in Brown to ensuring equal educational opportunities to all and weakened the democratic process by compromising one of its most important tools – a well-informed, fully engaged electorate. Rather than intervene to protect the right that Brown recognized as one that must be made available to all on equal terms, the Court improperly deferred to the economic interests of local and state governments.