A Retreat from Equality: How Rodriguez Reshaped the Right to Education

by Maggie Traubert, Associate Member, University of Cincinnati Law Review Vol. 94

I. Introduction

Education has long been a central part of American history, closely linked to the functioning of democracy, the development of citizenship, and the strength of communities.¹ Now more than ever, education is viewed as a ticket to economic success,² stability, and upward mobility—even referred to as society’s equalizer.³ However, despite the widely held belief that every student deserves access to an equitable and high-quality education, many students from diverse and disadvantaged communities remain in unequal positions.⁴

Among the many factors influencing educational quality, a growing body of evidence demonstrates that financial investment in school resources has a significant impact on student outcomes, as well as achievement and opportunity gaps.⁵ In the United States, public schools are primarily funded through local property taxes.⁶ As a result, schools located in wealthier communities benefit from a larger tax base and therefore receive greater funding, while schools in lower-wealth areas often experience the opposite.⁷

This Article argues that although the United States has long recognized education as central to democratic participation, the Supreme Court’s decision in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (“Rodriguez”),⁸ marked a retreat from this tradition by declining to recognize education as a fundamental constitutional right and allowing wealth-based disparities in school funding to persist. By leaving responsibility for educational funding largely to the states, the Court permitted a system in which access to educational resources often depends on local property wealth, contributing to unequal educational opportunities and outcomes for students.

Part II provides historical background on the development of public education in the United States, including early support for publicly funded schooling and the emergence of segregated schooling for Black Americans. It also examines Brown v. Board of Education (“Brown”),⁹ and its role in advancing the principle of educational equality. Part III analyzes Rodriguez, focusing on the Court’s reasoning, Justice Marshall’s dissent, and the decisions’ practical consequences, including the persistence of wealth-based and racially correlated disparities in school funding. Finally, Part IV concludes by arguing that meaningful educational equality requires reconsidering the constitutional status of education and calls for a legal framework that more fully aligns with the nation’s longstanding commitment to equal opportunity and democratic participation.

II. Background

A. Early American Education and Inequality

Long before the Constitution was drafted, America’s founders knew that democracy depended on education.¹⁰ Leaders like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson emphasized that an educated citizenry was essential for self-government and allowed citizens to consent meaningfully to government power.¹¹ John Adams declared that the education of “every rank and class of people, down to the lowest and the poorest” should “be the care of the public” and “maintained at the public expense,” emphasizing that no cost would be too great for such a vital institution.¹²

To support this vision, land was set aside for schools, and education was officially declared necessary for the survival of the republic.¹³ However, funding was limited, and access was far from universal.¹⁴ Public schools that did emerge, while grounded in the ideals of civic responsibility, were explicitly designed for white men. Towns and colonies established schools funded by local taxes, but these institutions largely excluded women, enslaved people, and free Black Americans.¹⁵

It would take until the mid-19th century for women to gain broader access to formal schooling, and over ninety years after the founding of public schools for Black Americans to attend schools legally, since enslaved people were entirely denied education until emancipation in 1865.¹⁶ Despite the lofty ideals of the nation’s founders, in practice, early American education was anything but equal. Rather than addressing these disparities, the legal system reinforced them in future litigation.

B. From “Separate but Equal” to Desegregation

The 1892 arrest of a mixed-race man for occupying a whites-only railway car precipitated one of the most consequential and enduring cases in American constitutional law.¹⁷ It was in this case, Plessy v Ferguson,¹⁸ that the Supreme Court established the doctrine of “separate but equal,” a principle that would justify segregated public schools and systematically deny African American students equal educational opportunities for decades.¹⁹

In Plessy, the Court upheld state laws mandating racial segregation, ruling that separation alone did not constitute unlawful discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment.²⁰ The Court argued that segregating public facilities by race, including schools, was a reasonable exercise of state authority, justified by a means of preserving public peace, promoting social comfort, and maintaining established customs.²¹ This formal doctrine masked a system in which separation functioned as a mechanism for systemic deprivation rather than equality.

In reality, the so-called “equal facilities” did little to promote social comfort or public order, as segregation entrenched inequality and subjected African American students to inferior and under-resourced schools.²² Chronic underfunding meant classrooms were overcrowded, textbooks were outdated or in short supply, and teachers were paid significantly less than their counterparts in white schools.²³ These disparities systematically denied Black students access to the educational opportunities afforded to white students, exposing the profound gap between the Court’s theoretical justification of segregation and the harsh realities of life under “separate but equal.”²⁴

The doctrine of “separate but equal” governed American public education for nearly six decades.²⁵ It was not until the most liberal Supreme Court in U.S. history—one that had already taken significant steps to advance civil rights and protect individual liberties—that the issue of school segregation was finally revisited.²⁶ Several cases from across the country were consolidated, prompting a reexamination of whether separate schools could ever truly be equal.²⁷

In 1954, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education declared that segregated schools were inherently unequal.²⁸ Thurgood Marshall, then the plaintiff’s attorney and later a Supreme Court Justice, skillfully framed the argument in social and educational terms, demonstrating how segregation violated not only the Constitution but also fundamental principles of quality and human dignity.²⁹ By accepting this argument, the Court recognized that equal educational opportunity was not merely a legal ideal but a fundamental component of true equality in American society.

Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren emphasized that “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments,” shaping the development of future citizens and underpinning democratic participation.³⁰ The Court concluded that racial segregation in public schools, even where facilities appeared materially similar, stigmatized Black children and deprived them of equal educational opportunity.³¹ The Court explained that separating children solely on the basis of race generated “a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”³² By framing the harms of segregation as both constitutional and societal, Brown established that equal access to education is essential for equality under the law, linking education, democracy, and civil rights in a profound and enduring way.

The following year, the Court addressed implementation of desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1955) (“Brown II”).³³ The Court instructed that school districts dismantle segregated systems “with all deliberate speed.”³⁴ However, many districts resisted integration.³⁵ Local opposition, administrative delays, and political resistance limited the immediate impact of the decision, particularly in the South.³⁶ These difficulties revealed that the promise of equal educational opportunity required more than a constitutional declaration; it required sustained oversight, resources, and political commitment.

Recognizing these challenges, the federal courts gradually assumed a more active role in enforcing desegregation, ultimately becoming a primary mechanism for translating the constitutional promise of school desegregation into practical change.³⁷ Through court orders requiring schools to dismantle dual systems,³⁸ reassignment of students and faculty,³⁹ transportation plans,⁴⁰ and redrawn attendance zones,⁴¹ the Court signaled its commitment to ensuring that the constitutional mandate of desegregated education was meaningfully implemented.

In the years that followed, many school districts gradually moved toward compliance under the supervision of the federal judiciary. Yet, the elimination of de jure segregation—the legal separation of individuals based on race upheld by laws and regulations—did not resolve all forms of educational inequality. Even as legally mandated segregation declined, disparities persisted across school systems, often rooted not in explicit racial classifications but in differences in local wealth and the resources available to schools. These emerging inequalities raised new constitutional questions about the relationship between education and equality—questions that would soon reach the Supreme Court. As the next section explores, the Court’s decision in Rodriguez marked a pivotal moment in this evolving legal landscape, signaling a retreat from earlier understandings of education’s central role in ensuring equal opportunity.

III. Discussion

Education in the United States is largely financed through state and local funding systems that rely heavily on local property taxes.⁴² While this structure allows communities to maintain significant control over their schools, it also produces substantial disparities in available resources between wealthy and low-income districts.⁴³ These disparities became the subject of constitutional litigation in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez,where families from property-poor districts challenged Texas’s school finance system under the Equal Protection Clause.⁴⁴

The case forced the Supreme Court to confront whether wealth-based disparities in educational funding violated constitutional principles of equality. By declining to recognize education as a fundamental right and upholding the existing funding structure, the Court limited the role of federal courts in addressing school finance inequality. The following sections examine the Texas funding system at issue in Rodriguez, the Court’s reasoning, and the implications of that decision for educational funding disparities.

A. The Texas School Funding System

At the time of litigation in Rodriguez, the state of Texas financed its public schools through a combination of state aid and local property taxation.⁴⁵ Similar to the school finance structures used in many other states,⁴⁶ the Texas system allowed differences in local property wealth to shape the resources available to individual school districts.⁴⁷ Because property values varied significantly across districts, the system produced substantial disparities in available resources.⁴⁸

The disparities created by this funding structure were particularly evident in the city of San Antonio.⁴⁹ The Edgewood Independent School District, located in a lower-income area of the city, served more than twenty thousand students but had one of the lowest property tax bases in the region.⁵⁰ Despite imposing the highest property tax rate in the metropolitan area, Edgewood generated only $356 per student in total revenue.⁵¹ By contrast, the nearby Alamo Heights District, the most affluent school district in San Antonio, generated approximately $594 per pupil, nearly two hundred forty dollars per student, even though it imposed a lower property tax rate.⁵² These funding differences translated into measurable differences in educational resources—wealthier districts were able to offer higher salaries, maintain smaller class sizes, and provide more academic support services.⁵³

In response to these disparities, a group of parents and students from property-poor districts filed a class action suit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas school finance system in Rodriguez.⁵⁴ The plaintiffs argued that the system violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,⁵⁵ by allowing substantial differences in educational funding between districts based on local property wealth.⁵⁶ Their challenge rested on two principal theories.

First, they contended that education should be recognized as a fundamental right under the Constitution, which would require the Court to apply strict scrutiny to the funding system.⁵⁷ Second, they argued that the system discriminated on the basis of wealth, which they claimed should be treated as a suspect classification for purposes of Equal Protection analysis.⁵⁸ A three-judge federal district court agreed with the plaintiffs and held that the Texas school finance system violated the Equal Protection Clause.⁵⁹ The State of Texas appealed, and the case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, where the Court was asked to determine whether the Constitution prohibits funding disparities rooted in differences in local property wealth.⁶⁰

B. The Court’s Reasoning

In Rodriguez, the Supreme Court reversed the district court’s ruling and upheld the Texas system.⁶¹ Writing for the Court, Justice Powell emphasized that neither education nor wealth is a basis for heightened constitutional protection under the Equal Protection Clause.⁶² The Court explicitly declined to recognize education as a fundamental right,⁶³ noting that the Constitution makes no explicit provision for schooling and that it is a matter traditionally addressed by the states.⁶⁴ Likewise, the Court rejected the plaintiffs’ claim that wealth should be treated as a suspect classification, reasoning that distinctions based on property wealth are commonplace in state governance and do not implicate the same historical or invidious concerns associated with race, religion, or national origin.⁶⁵ Because neither education nor wealth triggered heightened scrutiny, the Court applied rational-basis review, a highly deferential standard under which the state need only show that its funding system bears a rational relationship to legitimate objectives.⁶⁶

To establish a rational relationship, the Court emphasized that the design and administration of school finance systems fall primarily within the states’ authority.⁶⁷ Local control and state oversight were presented as legitimate governmental interests.⁶⁸ The Court reasoned that allowing school districts to rely on local property taxes was rationally related to these interests because it enabled communities to exercise control over their educational funding and reflected the state’s broader discretion in structuring its fiscal policies.⁶⁹ As a result, differences in resources between property-rich and property-poor districts were viewed as a permissible consequence of this system rather than a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.⁷⁰

C. Marshall’s Dissent

As the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court and former NAACP lead attorney, Justice Marshall brought a lifelong commitment to civil rights and educational equality to his judicial philosophy.⁷¹ Marshall authored a forceful dissent in Rodriguez, criticizing the majority for retreating from the Court’s “historic commitment to equality and educational opportunity.”⁷² Marshall contended that, just as the Court previously recognized unequal educational facilities as discriminatory in segregation cases, significant disparities in school funding likewise create unconstitutional inequality in educational opportunity.⁷³

He further argued that under the Equal Protection Clause, “the quality of public education may not be a function of wealth,”⁷⁴ because tying educational opportunity to local property wealth systematically disadvantages children in poorer districts, many of whom are minorities.⁷⁵ Marshall invoked Brown, where he had served as lead counsel, to stress his frustration with deferring to political solutions, writing that he was “unsatisfied with the hope of an ultimate ‘political’ solution sometime in the indefinite future while, in the meantime, countless children unjustifiably receive inferior educations that ‘may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.’”⁷⁶ Marshall’s warning that tying educational opportunity to local wealth perpetuates inequality is not merely theoretical; contemporary funding patterns demonstrate the enduring impact of this system.

D. The Consequences of Rodriguez

In the years since Rodriguez, many scholars and advocates have echoed Justice Marshall’s concern that tying educational opportunity to local wealth produces enduring inequality.⁷⁷ Namely, the dynamic between wealth and education is particularly troubling given the historical relationship between race and housing in the United States. Federal redlining practices and discriminatory lending standards in the early twentieth century limited where minority families could obtain mortgages and purchase homes, shaping residential patterns that remain deeply embedded today.⁷⁸ As a result, wealth-based disparities in school funding frequently operate alongside racial inequality, raising concerns that a system formally based on property wealth may, in practice, perpetuate many of the same inequities that earlier civil rights decisions sought to dismantle.

The disparities permitted under Rodriguez are not merely theoretical; they are measurable in the structure of modern school finance systems. A widely cited study by EdBuild found that predominantly white school districts receive approximately $23 billion more in funding nationwide than districts serving mostly students of color, despite educating a similar number of students.⁷⁹ On average, white districts receive about $13,908 per student, while districts serving primarily nonwhite students receive roughly $11,682 per student—a gap of more than $2,200 per pupil.⁸⁰ These disparities become even more pronounced when poverty is taken into account. Nationally, one in five students attends a high-poverty district serving mostly students of color, while only one in twenty attends a high-poverty district that is predominantly white.⁸¹

Structural differences in district organization further magnify this imbalance. Districts serving mostly students of color enroll an average of 10,500 students, while predominantly white districts enroll roughly 1,500 students on average.⁸² Moreover, there are more than six times as many predominantly white districts as districts serving primarily nonwhite students, giving wealthier communities greater representation and influence in state-level funding decisions.⁸³

These patterns illustrate the practical consequences of a school finance system built on local wealth. Public education in the United States remains closely tied to geography and property values, meaning that districts with stronger tax bases are able to generate significantly greater educational resources. Because residential patterns in the United States have long been shaped by racial and economic segregation, the result is a system in which wealth-based disparities in school funding frequently correspond with racial disparities in educational opportunity.⁸⁴

In this respect, the empirical funding gap identified by EdBuild lends considerable weight to Justice Thurgood Marshall’s warning in Rodriguez. If the quality of public education varies significantly according to local property wealth—and if wealth itself is deeply intertwined with the nation’s history of racial inequality—then by declining to recognize education as a fundamental right, the Court permitted disparities that, while ostensibly based on economics, effectively perpetuate racial inequality. The disparities revealed by the $23 billion funding gap underscore how the Court’s decision in Rodriguez marked a retreat from the equality principles articulated in Brown by permitting a system in which educational opportunity continues to depend heavily on local wealth.

IV. Conclusion

America’s education story, as one magazine article observed, “is ultimately a story of the tension between the idea that the nation’s democracy rests on the foundation of education and the inability to ever fully deliver on that commitment.”⁸⁵ This tension is evident throughout the history of public education, from the exclusion of women and Black Americans in the early republic, to legalized segregation upheld in Plessy, the promise of equality affirmed in Brown, and the retreat signaled by Rodriguez.

Every child in the United States deserves access to a high-quality education not as a privilege tied to local wealth or property values, but as a basic foundation for opportunity, citizenship, and personal growth. Ensuring that all children can receive the education they deserve requires not only political will and thoughtful policy but a legal framework that recognizes education as central to equality and democracy, perhaps not unlike the efforts made by the federal courts after Brown II. Only by aligning our laws with the principle that every child matters can the nation move closer to fulfilling the promise of equal opportunity that has long been central to its ideals.

Cover Photo by Kyo Azuma on Unsplash

Maggie Traubert

References

1
Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, A Brief History of Education in the United States, 13 J. Econ. Persp. 37 (1999).
2
Linda Darling-Hammond, Inequality in Teaching and Schooling: How Opportunity is Rationed to Students of Color in America, in The Right Thing to Do, The Smart Thing to Do: Enhancing Diversity in the Health Professions: Summary of the Symposium on Diversity in Health Professions in Honor of Herbert W. Nickens, M.D. (Briad D. Smedley et al. eds., Nat’l Acads. Press 2001), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK223640/ [https://perma.cc/VK53-REZ7].
3
Mayonel J. Jardinez & Lexter R. Natividad, The Advantages and Challenges of Inclusive Education: Striving for Equity in the Classroom, 12 Shanlax Int’l J. Educ. 57 (2024).
4
Id.
5
Learning Policy Institute, How Money Matters: Education Funding and Student Outcomes (Apr. 2025), https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/how-money-matters-factsheet [https://perma.cc/UE8X-YMLU].
6
Id.
7
Id.
8
411 U.S. 1 (1973).
9
347 U.S. 483 (1954).
10
See Derek W. Black, America’s Founders Recognized the Need for Public Education. Democracy Requires Maintaining That Commitment, TIME (Sep. 2020), https://time.com/5891261/early-american-education-history/ [https://perma.cc/97DT-8F7C].
11
Id. (“As James Madison, the father of our Constitution, remarked: “a popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy.” Thomas Jefferson similarly argued that governments “deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed,” but that it is education that makes that consent possible.”
12
Id.
13
Id.
14
Id.
15
See Alyssa Kariofyllis, Women’s Opportunities for Education Along the Battle Road, Minute Man National Historical Park (Oct. 2021), https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/alyssa-kariofyllis-women-of-the-battle-road-paper-3.htm [https://perma.cc/XRB3-E5MY].
16
See Carliss Maddox, Literacy By Any Means Necessary: The History of Anti‑Literacy Laws in the U.S., Oakland Literacy Coalition(Jan. 2022), https://oaklandliteracycoalition.org/literacy-by-any-means-necessary-the-history-of-anti-literacy-laws-in-the-u-s/[https://perma.cc/AH95-7PBL].; Ronald E. Butchart, Freedmen’s Education during Reconstruction, New Georgia Encyclopedia (Sept. 2002) https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/freedmens-education-during-reconstruction/ [https://perma.cc/7PSQ-W5AP].
17
See generally John A. Powell, The Law and Significance of Plessy, 7 Russell Sage Found. J. Soc. Scis. 20 (2021), https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2021.7.1.02 [https://perma.cc/T4AU-A8NK].
18
163 U.S. 537 (1896).
19
Powell, supra note 14.
20
Plessy, 163 U.S. at 548.
21
Id. at 550.
22
Robert Kennedy, Segregation in K‑12 Education: The Jim Crow Era (Apr. 15, 2025), https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/segregation-in-k-12-education-the-jim-crow-era?utm [https://perma.cc/LMR4-3JTX].
23
Id.
24
Id.
25
NCC Staff, Plessy’s Place in the List of Supreme Court Decisions (May 18, 2024), https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/plessys-place-in-the-list-of-supreme-court-decisions [https://perma.cc/69NF-M8MB].
26
Jane Glazebrook, The Impacts of Liberal and Conservative Supreme Courts, UMRA (Mar. 2025), https://umra.umn.edu/news/warren-and-roberts-courts-perspective [https://perma.cc/HC7U-GCC7].
27
See United States Courts, History – Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment, https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/educational-activities/brown-v-board-education-re-enactment/history-brown-v-board-education-re-enactment [https://perma.cc/QK76-RTUV] (last visited Mar. 7, 2026). There were five consolidated cases: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), Briggs v. Elliott (South Carolina), Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County (Virginia), Gebhart v. Belton (Delaware), and Bolling v. Sharpe (Washington, D.C.). The first four involved state segregation laws under the 14th Amendment, while Bolling challenged segregation in federally controlled schools under the 5th Amendment.
28
Brown, 347 U.S. at 496.
29
See NAACP, Brown v. Board of Education: The Case that Transformed America, Legal Defense Fund (last visited Mar. 2026) https://www.naacpldf.org/brown-vs-board/ [https://perma.cc/27BP-LXCR].
30
Brown, 347 U.S. at 493.
31
Id. at 495.
32
Id.
33
349 U.S. 294 (1955).
34
Id. at 301.
35
See Michael Wise, Congressional Busing and Federal Law: The Roots of Anti‑Busing Laws and How They Grew, 5 Civil Rts. Dig. 28 (1973).
36
Id.
37
See Jim Chen, With All Deliberate Speed: Brown II and Desegregation’s Children, 24 Law & Ineq. 1, 6 (Winter 2006).
38
See Alexander v. Holmes County Bd. of Ed., 396 U.S. 19 (1969) (Specifically demanded the end of dual, racially segregated school systems, predominantly in the South).
39
See Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007) (addressing student reassignment policies used to achieve racial balance).
40
See Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1 (1971) (upholding court-ordered student busing as a constitutional means to achieve desegregation).
41
Id. at 28. (Affirming the use of redrawn attendance zones as a valid remedy to eliminate segregation).
42
Alison O’Leary, Debating America’s School Funding: Sources, Amounts, and Priorities, GovFacts (June 2025), https://govfacts.org/education-family-social-services/k-12-education/school-funding/the-battle-over-americas-school-money/[https://perma.cc/37CE-RR3C], (“On average, state and local sources each provide about 44-47% of total funding…”
43
Id.
44
411 U.S. 1 (1973).
45
Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 10.
46
See Id. at 59.
47
Id. at 46.
48
Id. at 8.
49
Id. at 11.
50
Id.
51
Id.
52
Id. at 12, 13.
53
Id. at 46.
54
Id. at 4.
55
U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1.
56
Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 4.
57
See id. at 17.
58
Id.
59
Id. at 6.
60
Id.
61
Id. at 59.
62
Id. at 40.
63
Id. at 37.
64
Id. at 35.
65
Id. at 28.
66
Id. at 40.
67
Id. at 41.
68
Id.
69
Id.
70
Id. at 44.
71
Lynn Adelman, The Glorious Jurisprudence of Thurgood Marshall, 7 Harv. L. & Pol’y Rev. 113 (2013).
72
Id. at 71.
73
Id. at 84, 85.
74
Id. at 96.
75
Id. at 94.
76
Id. at 72.
77
See Lindsey Burke & Jude Schwalbach, Housing Redlining and Its Lingering Effects on Education Opportunity, The Heritage Foundation (Mar. 2021), https://www.heritage.org/education/report/housing-redlining-and-its-lingering-effects-education-opportunity [https://perma.cc/R93L-TFPA].
78
Id.
79
23 Billion, EdBuild (Feb. 2019), Page 2 https://edbuildna.org/content/23-billion/full-report.pdf [https://perma.cc/R4VQ-ZPMB].
80
Id. at 4.
81
Id. at 3.
82
Id.
83
Id. at 2.
84
See Clare Lombardo, Why White School Districts Have So Much More Money, NPR (Feb. 2019), https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/696794821/why-white-school-districts-have-so-much-more-money [https://perma.cc/J9V6-LCHU].
85
Black, supra note 9.