A.C., а minor, by her parent and guardian ad litem, Torrence S. Waithe; A.C.C., a minor, by her parent and guardian ad litem, Nicolas Cahuec; A.F., a minor, by his parent and guardian ad litem, Aletha Forcier; R.F., a minor, by her parent and guardian ad litem, Aletha Forcier; I.M., a minor, by his parents and guardians ad litem Jessica Thigpen and Anthony Thigpen; L.M., a minor, by her parents and guardians ad litem Jessica Thigpen and Anthony Thigpen; K.N.M.R., a minor, by her parent and guardian ad litem, Marisol Rivera Pitre; J.R.H., a minor, by her parents and guardians ad litem, Moira Hinderer and Hillary Reser; M.S., a minor, by his parent and guardian ad litem, Mark Santow; M.M.S., a minor, by his parent and guardian ad litem, Amie Tay; M.S., a minor, by her parents and guardians ad litem, Maruth Sok and Lap Meas; A.W., a minor, by her parent and guardian ad litem, Chanda Womack; J.W., a minor, by her parent and guardian ad litem, Chanda Womack; N.X., a minor, by her parents and guardians ad litem, Youa Yang and Kao Xiong, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. DANIEL J. MCKEE, in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Rhode Island; NICHOLAS A. MATTIELLO, in his official capacity as Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives; DOMINICK J. RUGGERIO, in his official capacity as President of the Rhode Island Senatе; RHODE ISLAND STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION; COUNCIL ON ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION; ANGELICA INFANTE-GREEN, in her official capacity as Commissioner of Education for the State of Rhode Island, Defendants, Appellees.
No. 20-2082
United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
January 11, 2022
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND [Hon. William E. Smith, U.S. District Judge]
v.
DANIEL J. MCKEE,* in his official capacity as Governor of the State of Rhode Island; NICHOLAS A. MATTIELLO, in his official capacity as Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives; DOMINICK J. RUGGERIO, in his official capacity as President of the Rhode Island Senate; RHODE ISLAND STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION; COUNCIL ON ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION; ANGELICA INFANTE-GREEN, in her official capacity as Commissioner of Education for the State of Rhode Island,
Defendants, Appellees.
* Pursuant to
Before Howard, Chief Judge, Kayatta, Circuit Judge, and Casper,** District Judge.
Michael A. Rebell, with whom Center for Educational Equity, Teachers College, Columbia University, Jennifer L. Wood, Rhode Island Center for Justice, Samuel D. Zurier, and Stephen Robinson, and Robinson & Clapham, were on brief, for appellants.
Michael W. Field, Assistant Attorney General, with whom Andrea M. Shea and Keith Hoffmann, Special Assistant Attorneys General, were on brief, for appellees Daniel J. McKee, Nicholas A. Mattiello, and Domenick J. Ruggerio.
Anthony F. Cottone, Chief Legal Counsel, Rhode Island Department of Education, for appellees Rhode Island Board of Education, Council on Elementary and Secondary Education, and Angelica Infante-Green.
William T. Russell, Jr., David Elbaum, Jonathan T. Menitove, Nicholas L. Ingros, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP on brief for Professors Danielle Allen and Meira Levinson, amici curiae.
Yahonnes Cleary, Erin J. Morgan, Alexander F. Atkins, Carly Lagrotteria, David Fu, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP on brief for National Council for the Social Studies, amicus curiae.
Andrew M. Troop, Jeffrey P. Metzler, and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP on brief for National League of Women Voters, League of Women Voters of Rhode Island, and American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, amici curiae.
Robert M. Kline, Kristin A. Taylor, Carlos F. Ortiz, Michael W. Weaver, Dana McSherry, Annabel Rodriguez, McDermott Will & Emery, Jose Perez, Francisca D. Fajana, Miranda Galindo, and LatinoJustice PRLDEF on brief for LatinoJustice PRLDEF, et al., amici curiae.
Gilda Daniels, Jessica Alcantara, Ky‘Eisha Penn, Advancement Project, Janette Louard, Anthony Ashton, Victor L. Goode, National
** Of the District of Massachusetts, sitting by designation.
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Jеremy Karpatkin, Raqiyyah Pippins, Florence Bryan, Danielle Pingue, Saul P. Morgenstern, Jonathan Green, Peter L. Schmidt, Javier Ortega, and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP on brief for Advancement Project and NAACP, amici curiae.
Nowell D. Bamberger, Leila Mgaloblishvili, Tony J. Russo, and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP on brief for Generation Citizen and Mikva Challenge, amici curiae.
Yelena Konanova, Jordan W. Garman, and Selendy & Gay LLP on brief for Professor Martha Minow, amicus curiae.
Michael M. Epstein, Julie K. Waterstone, and Amicus Project at Southwestern Law School on brief for Samantha M. Dennis, et al., amici curiae.
S. Elaine McChesney, Robert E. McDonnell, Elizabeth M. Bresnahan, Michael A. Hacker, and Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP on brief for Providence Youth Student Movement, et al., amici curiae.
Jeffrey A. Simes, Allison R. Klein, and Goodwin Procter LLP on brief for National
Andrew J. Ceresney, Jillian L. Trezza, Amy C. Zimmerman, Erik Rubinstein, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP on brief for The Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, et al., amici curiae.
Casper, District Judge. This appeal raises the question of whether Rhode Island‘s alleged failure to provide public school students with an adequate civics educatiоn can state a claim for violation of the students’ constitutional rights. On behalf of a putative class of “all students attending public K-12 schools in Rhode Island . . . who are not receiving a meaningful opportunity to obtain the degree of education that is necessary to prepare them to be capable voters and jurors, to exercise effectively their right of free speech, to participate effectively and intelligently in our open political system and to function productively as civic participants,” several students (“Appellants” or “Students“) brought an action for declaratory relief against the Governor and various Rhode Island officials and agencies (“Rhode Island“) under the Equal Protection, Due Process, and Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the
I.
Following a district court‘s grant of a motion to dismiss, we recite the facts as well-pleaded in the complaint. Zhao v. CIEE Inc., 3 F.4th 1, 4 (1st Cir. 2021). Appellants live in and attend (or will attend) public schools in Rhode Island, spanning preschool through twelfth grade, and allege that Rhode Island has failed to provide them with an education “adequate to prepare them to function productively as civic participants capable of voting, serving on a jury, understanding economic, social and political systems sufficiently to make informed choices, and to participate effectively in civic activities.”
The Students point to several components of Rhode Island‘s approach to civics education that have caused the alleged failure. First, Rhode Island does not require any civics coursеs, although some high schools in more affluent districts offer elective civics courses, nor does the state mandate testing for civics knowledge at the high school level or report student performance in these subjects, unlike reading, math and science. Due to limited time and resources, schools thus focus on these mandatory subjects that are tested statewide. Second, Rhode Island‘s current civics curriculum falls short. It has not adopted the College, Career and Civic Life (“C3“) framework for teaching civics, which various educators and policy organizations have endorsed. When courses do address civics concepts, the content is not as comprehensive as the C3 framework would provide. Moreover, current courses do not promote active classroom discussion of “controversial topics” and do not teach students media literacy to navigate today‘s
As to the effect of the lack of civics education, the Students cite national studies reporting a lack of civic knowledge, and a disinterest and lack of participation in civic life (e.g., voting and volunteering) among young Americans when compared to previous generations. They also pоint to the “civic empowerment gap” for many African American and Latino students and students from low-income families, citing demographic analysis of the results of civics knowledge testing done on a national sample of eighth graders.
II.
We review the district court‘s grant of Rhode Island‘s motion to dismiss de novo. Gaspee Project v. Mederos, 13 F.4th 79, 84 (1st Cir. 2021).
A.
The Students appeal the district court‘s conclusion that an adequate civics education is not a fundamental constitutional right, which was fatal to their Substantive Due Process and Equal Protection claims.2 See A.C., 494 F. Supp. 3d at 193.
We turn first to the Supreme Court‘s precedent regarding the existence vel non of a fundamental right to education. Dating back at least to Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court has characterized education as “the most important function of state and local governments,” and as the “very foundation of good citizenship,” which is “required in the performance of our most basic public responsibilities.” San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 29-30 (1973) (quoting Brown v. Bd. of Ed., 347 U.S. 483, 493 (1954)); see Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 221-23 (1982) (noting Court‘s recognition of education as a vital civic institution for preservation of American democracy). Nevertheless, the Court has distinguished the relative importance of education and its role in soсiety from the fundamental rights inquiry under the Fourteenth Amendment and looked to whether it was “explicitly or implicitly guaranteed by the Constitution.” Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 30, 33 (citations omitted) (explaining that “the importance of a service performed by the State does not determine whether it must be regarded as fundamental“). Conducting that analysis in Rodriguez, where Texas children challenged the state‘s increasing reliance upon local property taxes to fund its public schools, thus favoring wealthy districts, the Court held that education in general was not so guaranteed. Id. at 35-37. Furthermore, the Court explicitly rеjected the petitioners’ argument that “education is itself a fundamental
Appellants here read Rodriguez to suggest that, if properly alleged, we may conclude that the Constitution protects the specific right to a civics education that prepares them to participate effectively in these important aspects of public life (e.g., voting or other civic participation). We read the language in Rodriguez, however, to reject this proposition. See id. Since Rodriguez, the Court has not only reaffirmed its central holding, but also clarified that the decision left open only the question, as relevant here, of “whether a minimally adequate education is a fundamental right . . . .” Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 285-86 (1986); Kadrmas v. Dickinson Pub. Sch., 487 U.S. 450, 466 n.1 (1988) (Marshall, J., dissenting). In Papasan, the Court declined to resolve this question directly, because it determined that the petitioners had failed to allege that they had been “deprived of a minimally adequate education.” Papasan, 478 U.S. at 286. In so doing, the Court clearly suggested that such a deprivation may only be “possib[le]” in the case of a “radical denial of educational opportunity,” such as where “schoolchildren . . . are not taught to read or write” or “receive no instruction on even the educational basics.” Id. at 284, 286. As the Court explained, the petitioners’ factual allegations regarding school-funding disparities simply failed to plead such a claim.
Here, much like the petitioners in Papasan and Rodriguez, the Students do not plausibly allege that they were “deprived of a minimally adequate education,” i.e., state action tantamount to a “radical” or “absolute denial” of any “educational opportunity.” See Papasan, 478 U.S. at 284, 286; Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 37. Instead, their complaint alleges that Rhode Island‘s policies vis-à-vis civics-related curriculum is substantively inadequate to prepare them for meaningful civic engagement as adults, whether through insufficient course offerings and extracurricular activities, or that state standards do not conform to the C3 framework that educators and policy organizations have endorsed. But as we have discussed, the Court rejected a similar argument in Rodriguez. See Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 35-36 (rejecting the argument that a “nexus between speech and education” or between the “right to vote . . . [and] the educational foundation of the voter” creates a fundamental right to education, generally). And the Court has never suggested that the minimum “quantum of education” that could be constitutionally required must necessarily include instruction in certain subject matters or ensure сertain educational outcomes (perhaps with the exception of an opportunity for basic literacy). See Papasan, 478 U.S. at 286; Plyler, 457 U.S. at 222 (declining to recognize a fundamental right to education but applying heightened scrutiny to a complete “denial of basic education” to undocumented children, noting that “[i]lliteracy is an enduring disability . . . [that] will handicap the
We also take judicial notice of relevant Rhode Island law, which has since 2007 required at least some civics education in its schools, even if it is not as comprehensive as the framework Appellants desire, and this law was amended recently during the pendency of this appeal to require civics proficiency, among other changes. See, e.g.,
For these reasons, this lawsuit stands in contrast to a case considered recently by the Sixth Circuit, upon which the Students heavily rely, where a panel majority concluded that students in Detroit Public Schools had plausibly alleged denial of their fundamental right to “a basiс minimum education -- meaning one that plausibly provides access to literacy.” Gary B. v. Whitmer, 957 F.3d 616, 648-49 (6th Cir. 2020), reh‘g en banc granted, opinion vacated, 958 F.3d 1216 (6th Cir. 2020). Surveying legal and historical authority,4 the court determined that access to literacy was a fundamental right because, in part, it is “viewed by our society as essential for students to obtain even a chance at political and economic opportunity.” See id. at 649-52.
In that lawsuit, which now remains dismissed, the plaintiffs specifically alleged facts describing conditions in their schools that the students were not receiving a minimally adequate education: a significant shortage of qualified teachers, unsanitary
As described above, the complaint here fails to allege a total deprivation of a minimally adequate education (as opposed to specific subject-matter inclusion).5 See Papasan, 748 U.S. at 285-86 (declining to engage in fundamental right to education analysis when plaintiffs did not allege that they were “not taught to read or write,” or that they did not receive “instruction on even the educational basics“).
For these reasons, we affirm the district court‘s conclusion that the students have not plausibly alleged the deprivation of a fundamental right.6
B.
In conducting our analysis of the Students’ equal protection claim, we first consider the appropriate level of scrutiny to apply. See Plyler, 457 U.S. at 216-17; Toledo v. Sanchez, 454 F.3d 24, 33 (1st Cir. 2006). As a preliminary matter, we reject the Students’ argument that strict scrutiny applies, since we concluded above that their allegations do nоt implicate a fundamental right. Moreover, the Students, suing on behalf of all public school students in Rhode Island, have not asserted that they should be considered a suspect class. See Toledo, 454 F.3d at 33.
The Students next argue that Plyler entitles them to some heightened standard of review. In Plyler, the Court “struck down under heightened scrutiny the exclusion of [undocumented] children from a free public education offered to other resident children as violative of equal protection.” Id. (citing Plyler, 457 U.S. at 230).7 We are not persuaded
instead they represent all Rhode Island public school students, nor thаt they have been outright denied access to a basic education.
Accordingly, as there are no suspect classifications alleged or fundamental rights implicated, our equal protection review is “limited to a deferential, rational basis standard.” D‘Angelo v. New Hampshire Sup. Ct., 740 F.3d 802, 806 (1st Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). As the same applies to our substantive due process review, see Mulero-Carrillo v. Roman-Hernandez, 790 F.3d 99, 107 (1st Cir. 2015), we proceed accordingly.
C.
In reviewing state action under the “forgiving [rational basis] standard,” the state will prevail “so long as [it] articulates some ‘reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a ratiоnal basis for the [action].‘” Donahue v. City of Boston, 371 F.3d 7, 15-16 (1st Cir. 2004) (quoting FCC v. Beach Commc‘ns, Inc., 508 U.S. 307, 313 (1993)); Mulero-Carrillo, 790 F.3d at 107 (applying same requirements at motion to dismiss stage). The Students argue that the district court erred when it dismissed their complaint under rational basis review without the chance to present evidence, but we have previously rejected this argument, for under rational basis review, “any plausible justification [from the state] will suffice, and effectively ends the analysis.” Donahue, 371 F.3d at 15-16 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); Beach Commc‘ns, Inc., 508 U.S. at 315 (explaining that rational basis does “not subject” action “to courtroom fact-finding and may be based on rational speculation unsupported by evidence or empiriсal data“); Toledo, 454 F.3d at 33 (dismissing equal protection claim where “rational bases for the actions are apparent from the face of the complaint“). Rhode Island asserts several justifications for its actions regarding civics education. First, Rhode Island notes that the state has not denied access to civics education, but rather that its laws indeed require civics education in some form. Second, Rhode Island contends that it has an interest in allowing curricular and extracurricular decisions to be made at the local level. Third, Rhode Island explаins that to the extent it has favored certain classes over others, like science and math, those decisions were made to prepare students for the workforce or to comply with federal law that mandates testing in these areas.
As to local control, the Students contend that Rhode Island has substantial authority over education and “should exercise this existing supervisory authority to ensure that civics education is a high priority for all Rhode Island‘s schools,” and that additional oversight of local education policy with respect to civics courses is more important
The state‘s asserted reasons are at least “plausible,” which satisfies the “forgiving” rational basis inquiry. Donahue, 371 F.3d at 15 (citations omitted). In particular, we note that states, and more so schools and teachers, must grapple with limited resources and time to educate their students, all while satisfying multiple demands, including mandated federal standards for testing and proficiency, which can affect their funding. We do not doubt the importance of the civics curriculum proffered by the Students and their amici, but we also do not doubt the importance of reading, science and math, both for providing a basic education and for preparing students to succeed in higher education and the workfоrce.
Finally, as to the equal protection claim, we note that the Students have also failed to tie the difference between their schools and more affluent ones (that do provide elective civics courses and experiences) to policies implemented or enforced by Rhode Island to create this alleged disparity, aside from mere mention that one district offers some optional courses. But to state an equal protection claim, the Students must connect the alleged disparity to a specific policy or action taken by Rhode Island that caused these differences. See Toledo, 454 F.3d at 33-34. Here, they have not.
For these reasons, we affirm the district court‘s conclusion that Rhode Island‘s approach to civics education satisfies rational basis review.
D.
We briefly address whether the complaint states a claim for relief under the Guarantee and Privileges and Immunities Clauses. As to the Guarantee Clause, we have noted that it “makes the guarantee of a republican form of government to the states; the bare language of the Clause does not directly confer any rights оn individuals vis-a-vis the states.” Largess v. Supreme Jud. Ct. for State of Mass., 373 F.3d 219, 224 n.5 (1st Cir. 2004) (emphasis in original). Even assuming arguendo that the Students had standing here, their Guarantee Clause claim fails on the merits. Any such claim “is restricted to real threats to a republican form of government.” Largess, 373 F.3d at 227 (emphasis added); see New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 185-86 (1992) (dismissing state‘s Guarantee Clause challenge to a federal regulatory scheme where the threats did not “pose any realistic risk of altering the form or the method of functioning of [the state‘s] government,” noting that even under the scheme, the state “retain[ed] the ability to set their legislative agendas” and “state government officials remain[ed] аccountable to the local electorate” (emphasis added)). Even reading the complaint in the light most favorable to Students, it is not plausibly alleged that Rhode Island‘s failure to provide civics education here is a real threat to its republican form of government. The Privileges and Immunities Clause claim also fails because the clause “protects only those privileges and immunities that are ‘fundamental,‘” McBurney v. Young, 569 U.S. 221, 226 (2013) (quoting Baldwin v. Fish and Game Comm‘n of Mont., 436 U.S. 371, 382, 388 (1978)), not present here, and also
III.
We conclude by echoing the district court‘s observations in dismissing this case, that the Students have called attention to critical issues of declining civic engagement and inadequate preparation for participation in civic life at a time when many are concerned about the future of American democracy. See A.C., 494 F. Supp. 3d at 175-76, 181, 197. Nevertheless, the weight of precedent stands in the Students’ way here, and they have not stated any viable claim for relief.
We affirm the judgment of the district court.