Court Cases Education

BAKERSFIELD, CA – A ruling last week by the Kern County Superior Court denied the Kern High School District’s (KHSD) request to dismiss the discrimination lawsuit filed against it by Latino and Black students.

AUSTIN, TX – Today, in a disappointing blow to equal educational opportunity, the Texas Supreme Court reversed a 2014 trial court ruling that declared the current state school finance system constitutionally inadequate, unsuitable, and inequitable for Texas school children.

BAKERSFIELD, CA – On December 31, 2015, the Kern County Superior Court ruled that Latino and Black Plaintiffs may proceed against the Kern County Office of Education and Superintendent Christine Lizardi Frazier with their claims that the agency and Superintendent failed to take steps to ensure that students in the Kern High School District (KHSD) and alternative schools run by the Kern COE were not subjected to discrimination and denied equal educational opportunity. Parents and students enrolled in the Kern High School District and community activist organizations Dolores Huerta Foundation, National Brotherhood Association, and Faith in Action Kern County brought the action against the State as well as the Kern High School District and Kern County Office of Education; plaintiffs are represented by a coalition of civil rights legal advocates and pro bono counsel, including MALDEF, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., Equal Justice Society, and Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, Inc., and Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati.

TUCSON, AZ – On Friday of last week, a stipulation to provide Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) magnet schools needed support was filed in the historic desegregation case, Mendoza v. Tucson Unified School District. Under the court-adopted Unitary Status Plan (USP) developed by the parties and Special Master to resolve the 40-year old case, magnet schools are to strengthen their students’ academic achievement and increase integration. Following several magnet schools’ failure to meet integration benchmarks, MALDEF, together with co-counsel Lois D. Thompson, Partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, advanced a proposal to delay any recommendations of magnet status withdrawal and to have TUSD provide magnet schools with additional needed support, including financial support and the filling of teacher vacancies, to close the achievement gap between magnet schools’ white students and their Latino and African American students, and to improve recruitment of students.

BAKERSFIELD, CA – African American and Latino Plaintiffs suing Kern High School District and other state and county officials in a civil rights action were not surprised to hear that an expert, Dr. Jon Eyler, presented a report to the Kern High School District indicating that African American students are subject to double the rates of discipline as white students. The Discipline Analysis Report presented data about discipline and suspension rates Monday night at the Kern High School District board meeting.

LOS ANGELES, CA – Earlier this week, in two orders, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed steps taken to move toward favorable resolution of the historic desegregation case, Mendoza v. Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). Under the court-adopted plan to resolve the 40-year old case, TUSD must, among other things, implement culturally relevant courses at its schools. In two separate appeals, the Court denied the state of Arizona’s attempt to intervene in the case to challenge the implementation of the ethnic studies curriculum, and it denied TUSD’s attempt to circumvent District Court orders that expedite steps to eliminate segregation within the District. The case was filed by MALDEF in 1974 in federal district court in Tucson.

SANTA FE, NM – Yesterday, Judge Sarah Singleton, in the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico, rejected the State’s Motion to Dismiss in Martinez v. State of New Mexico, a case brought by MALDEF on behalf of parents and students who are low-income, English Language Learners (“ELL”), and/or receiving special education services. In this foundational case, the students charged the State with violating their fundamental right to a sufficient education, and their right to equal protection and due process of the law as required under the New Mexico Constitution.

BAKERSFIELD, CA – A coalition of civil rights legal advocates, including MALDEF, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., Equal Justice Society, and Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, Inc., today filed suit in Kern County Superior Court to compel Kern High School District (KHSD) to eliminate a variety of discriminatory disciplinary policies and practices that disproportionately impact students of color. The suit was filed on behalf of Latino and African American students and parents, as well as community members and community organizations, who have suffered the impacts of discriminatory expulsion and school assignment policies, and who have sought to bring equity to the KHSD system without success.

AUSTIN, TX – Today, Travis County District Court Judge John K. Dietz issued his final judgment, declaring the current Texas school finance system inadequate, unsuitable, and inequitable for Texas school children under Article VII, Section 1 of the Texas Constitution, and in violation of the prohibition on a state ad valorem tax under Article VIII, Section 1-e. “Rather than attempt to solve the problem, the State has buried its head in the sand, making no effort to determine the cost of providing all students with a meaningful opportunity to acquire the essential knowledge and skills reflected in the state curriculum and to graduate at a college- and career-ready level,” Judge Dietz stated in his scathing rebuke of the school system. This long-anticipated ruling follows a three-week hearing earlier this year after Judge Dietz reopened the evidence in the wake of statutory changes made to the public education system during the 2013 Legislative session. On February 4, 2013, he issued a similar ruling from the bench following a three-month trial.

SACRAMENTO, CA – A group of civil rights advocates including California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., Equal Justice Society, Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, Inc., and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) today filed an administrative complaint with the California Department of Education (“State”) demanding that it directly intervene and investigate the illegal school funding allocations of over 6 million dollars by the Kern High School District (“Kern District”) and Kern County Office of Education (“Kern County”).

AUSTIN, TX – Today, in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the University of Texas at Austin’s holistic admissions plan, affirming the university’s ability to consider the race of an applicant as one of many factors in its admissions decisions. The U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case to the Fifth Circuit in June 2013, after it held that the Fifth Circuit had not applied the correct standard in judging the University of Texas admissions program. On remand, the Fifth Circuit received briefing from the parties, as well as from MALDEF, which filed an amicus brief on behalf of twenty state and national Latino organizations urging the court to affirm the constitutionality of UT-Austin’s plan as a complement to the Top Ten Percent Plan.

SANTA FE, NM – Today, MALDEF filed an amended complaint in Martinez v. State of New Mexico, adding claims seeking equal educational opportunity for students with disabilities in the state. The suit is an expansion of the comprehensive case filed in April seeking to compel New Mexico to provide a sufficient education to ELL and at-risk students, as mandated by the state’s constitution. The suit is the first ever challenge of the state’s provision of education to at-risk students, and now the first to seek injunctive relief under the New Mexico Constitution for students with disabilities.