Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982)

"It is difficult to understand precisely
what the State hopes to achieve by promoting
the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates."

Tyler, Texas, 1977. A small agricultural community. It's September, time to start school. But not for many children of Mexican farm workers. A new Texas law permits public education only for those with proof of legal residency or full tuition. Many of the Mexican children have neither.

The parents file a class action suit. In 1982, the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, finds the Texas law unconstitutional. "It is difficult to understand precisely what the State hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime." Justice William Brennan writes: "The Fourteenth Amendment provides that 'No State shall... 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 Texas statute imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status. The stigma of illiteracy will mark them for the rest of their lives. By denying these children a basic education, we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions, and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our Nation."

For more...

Immigrants students' legal rights National Coalition of Advocates for Students

Undocumented Children in the Schools Department of Education

Plyler vs. Doe Summary Language Learner KnowledgeBase

AMENDMENT 14 Due Process and Equal Protection of the Law

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; 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. [^].

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