Giving Compass' Take:

• In 1982, in the 5-4 Plyler v. Doe decision, the Supreme Court declared that all young people - regardless of documentation status - have a right to public education. 

• What does this law mean for DeVos' proposed policy shifts? How can philanthropy help to ensure that undocumented youths have access to their right to public education? 

• Learn about the cost of excluding undocumented students from higher education.

In late May, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos asserted before a House committee that reporting undocumented students to authorities is “a school decision,” prompting impassioned retorts from civil rights groups, lawyers and educators and a co-signed a letter May 29th from nearly 170 organizations demanding clarification of her comments.

The issue at hand is Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 Supreme Court case that established the precedent that all children — independent of legal status — have the right to a public education.

While scores of recent articles have name-dropped Plyler v. Doe, the case’s backstory remains less known.

The story of the case began when the Texas legislature revised the state’s education laws in 1975, withholding state funds from local school districts for students enrolled who were not “legally admitted” into the U.S. and authorizing schools to bar such students. In response, Tyler Independent School District in northeast Texas — under the direction of superintendent James Plyler — adopted a policy two years later that required each undocumented student to pay an annual tuition of $1,000.

As a result, a group of children of Mexican origin were unable to attend school.

A class action lawsuit in U.S. district court, brought on behalf of four families, followed. The court allowed the families to be identified by pseudonyms — hence, “John Doe” — and deduced that the statute didn’t serve “the purpose or effect of keeping illegal aliens out of the State of Texas” or improve the quality of education. The school district took the case to an appeals court, and it later filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court’s 5–4 decision on June 15, 1982, upheld prior rulings and found the policy in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which declares that “no State shall ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’ ”

Read the full article about Plyler v. Doe by Taylor Swaak at The 74.