Plyler v. Doe
| Plyler v. Doe | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Argued December 1, 1981 Decided June 15, 1982 |
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| Full case name | James Plyler, Superintendent, Tyler Independent School District, et al. v. John Doe, et al. |
| Citations | 457 U.S. 202 (more)
102 S. Ct. 2382; 72 L. Ed. 2d 786; 1982 U.S. LEXIS 124; 50 U.S.L.W. 4650
|
| Prior history | Judgment for plaintiffs, 458 F. Supp. 569 (E.D. Tex. 1978); affirmed, 628 F.2d 448 (5th Cir. 1980) |
| Subsequent history | Rehearing denied, 458 U.S. 1131 (1982) |
| Holding | |
| A Texas statute denying free public education to illegal aliens violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, because discrimination on the basis of immigration status did not further a substantial state interest. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. | |
| Court membership | |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Brennan, joined by Marshall, Blackmun, Powell, Stevens |
| Concurrence | Marshall |
| Concurrence | Blackmun |
| Concurrence | Powell, joined by Brennan, Marshall, Stevens |
| Dissent | Burger, joined by White, Rehnquist, O'Connor |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XIV; Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 21.031 | |
Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down a state statute denying funding for education to undocumented immigrant children and simultaneously struck down a municipal school district's attempt to charge undocumented immigrants an annual $1,000 tuition fee for each undocumented alien student to compensate for the lost state funding. The Court found that where states limit the rights afforded to people (specifically children) based on their status as immigrants, this limitation must be examined under an intermediate scrutiny standard to determine whether it furthers a "substantial" state interest.
The application of Plyler v. Doe has been limited to K-12 schooling. Other court cases and legislation such as Toll v. Moreno 441 U.S. 458 (1979) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 have allowed some states to pass statutes that deny undocumented alien students eligibility for in-state tuition, scholarships, or even bar them from enrollment at public colleges and universities.
Revisions to education laws in Texas in 1975 withheld state funds for educating children who had not been legally admitted to the United States and authorized local school districts to deny enrollment to such students. A 5-to-4 majority of the Supreme Court found that this policy was in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, as unauthorized immigrant children are people "in any ordinary sense of the term," and therefore had protection from discrimination unless a substantial state interest could be shown to justify it.
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