ABSTRACT
An impressive body of scholarship demonstrates that the American public school system reproduces unequal and dual forms of citizenship. San Antonio v. Rodriguez is as an instructive template of contradiction that reveals opposing conceptions of what is means to be and to create a citizen. A critical reappraisal of Rodriguez thus leads us to frame new questions about the functional relation between poverty and schooling. The dominant common sense operative seems to be that, owing to the 1954 Brown decision, public schooling in America has progressed beyond the separate but equal doctrine sanctioned by Plessey. It is important to notice that Plessey reflects no absolute form of discrimination. Citizens deemed colored could still ride trains in Louisiana. Quoting Brown, Justice Marshall took aim at the destructive consequences civic inequality imposes on citizens and argued that the disparities may affect the hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.
