Developments in the Cruz Guzman Litigation Part I

    In August of this year, the Cruz Guzman plaintiffs brought a motion for partial summary judgment before the presiding Hennepin District Judge Robiner.   A summary judgment motion asks the judge to determine that the moving party win without a trial, because there are no facts in dispute that would require a trial.   Judge Robiner's thoughtful decision is a small step in the protracted Cruz-Guzman litigation which has already consumed more than 5 years.   However small that step, the issuance of judge Robiner's decision, presents an excellent opportunity to take a look at the somewhat elliptical course over which the Cruz-Guzman has taken education clause jurisprudence.   In the next several posts, Jvonkorff on Education will undertake a closer look at the issues in Cruz Guzman as it now heads once again to the appellate courts.  

   We say elliptical, because most certainly, the education clause was designed to require the state of Minnesota to provide young people an adequate education, by which the authors of the clause surely meant an education that would prepare the young, regardless of income, class or race, an education that would prepare them to compete in the current economy, and for civic responsibility in the American democracy. 

As it happens, about forty percent, or more, of students educated in Minneapolis public schools and charters are failing to receive an adequate education. No unbiased observer could possibly assert that the Minnesota public school system is working for those students: transparently and undeniably, our system of public education is failing to provide an adequate education, failing to provide for basic literacy in reading, failing to provide for basic literacy in math and science.    While seeking to explain what the Cruz-Guzman case is trying to do; it is time also to ask, how can it be possible, after six years of litigation, the Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs have utterly failed to address this failure by seeking to force the core fundamental constitutional right to an adequate education. 

Justice Anderson's dissent in the Supreme Court's Cruz-Guzman decision has encapsulated the primary mission of the Cruz-Guzman suit: to force the state to reorganize the public school and charter systems in Minneapolis and St. Paul so that all schools are balanced by race and socioeconomic status:

"Appellants contend that their children attending Minneapolis and Saint Paul public schools are denied the right to an “adequate education” as guaranteed by the Minnesota Constitution because the schools are “segregated on the basis of both race and socioeconomic status.”

Although way too many Minneapolis and St. Paul students are not learning to read effectively, and way too many Minneapolis and St. Paul students are not becoming literate in math or science, the Cruz-Guzman plaintiff's motion for summary judgment does not demand that the state provide those students with an adequate education: it merely asks that the Courts tell the state that those students ought to be educated in racially balanced schools, even when they don't want to attend them.

 This focus on racial and economic diversity in public schools and charters has essentially sucked all of the oxygen out of the educational clauses main purpose, which was to foster universal adequate education.  

Education Clause's Main Purpose

In its Cruz-Guzman decision, the Supreme Court itself in an eloquent opinion by Justice Hudson reminds us of the education clause's main purpose.  Justice Hudson explained the purpose of the education clause as follows.  In the 1993 Skeen decision, she wrote:

"We specifically stated that “there is a fundamental right, under the Education Clause, to a ‘general and uniform system of education’ which provides an adequate education to all students in Minnesota.” Id. at 315. We declared that the Education Clause “requires the state to provide enough funds to ensure that each student receives an adequate education and that the funds are distributed in a uniform manner.”

In a decisive rebuttal to those who claim that adequate education is some form of mediocre education, Justice Hudson explained:   

"The fundamental right recognized in Skeen was not merely a right to anything that might be labeled as “education,” but rather, a right to a general and uniform system of education that is thorough and efficient, that is supported by sufficient and uniform funding, and that provides an adequate education to all students in Minnesota."

The Cruz-Guzman Motion

After nearly six years of litigation, the Cruz Guzman plaintiffs motion does not assert that racial and socioeconomic imbalance in Minneapolis and St. Paul are connected to students not learning to master reading, mathematics, science or social studies proficiently.   To the contrary, their sole claim, for which they seek relief is that going to school in a racially imbalanced school is itself an inadequate education in violation of the education clause, even if the students or their parents have chosen to attend those schools.   

The Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs motion contends that the State of Minnesota is violating Minnesota's Education clause because the Minneapolis and St. Paul schools are racially imbalanced, whether that is causing an otherwise inadequate education or not.   The plaintiffs say that there is no question that some schools in Minneapolis have very high percentages of non-white students, and others very high percentages of white students.   They contend that it is not important how this happened: the racial disparities among schools, they allege,  violate the education clause, because they say, racial imbalances are themselves inherently and invidiously unequal.  

Thus the issue that they presented to Judge Robiner to decide: whether the judge should order the state to reconfigure all public schools and charters in some way to make them more racially balanced and more balanced by socioeconomic status.  They have not alleged in their motion, nor have they attempted to prove in this motion, that if the court finds in their favor, it will result in better reading proficiency, better math proficiency, but merely that schools must be reorganized to become racially and socioeconomically balanced.

We'll discuss how Judge Robiner address plaintiff's motion and it implication for educational justice. Our subsequent posts will attempt to drill into the plaintiff's contention in Cruz-Guzman and the implications of the legal theory that the present:

• Does the education clause demand that the State of Minnesota force Minneapolis and St. Paul to assure all schools are racially balanced, even if the neighborhoods they serve are not so balanced? 

• Do racially imbalanced schools violate the constitution, even if the racial imbalance is not the product of intentional action by the government?

• If a charter school is racially imbalanced because of its curriculum or emphasis, must that charter school be reorganized to rebalance its student population.   Must the state force students out of a school where they are thriving to one where they are not thriving to achieve racial balance?
  
  
• Do the Cruz Guzman plaintiffs state a sound education clause violation, if they fail to prove that the relief they seek will assure that the relief will remedy inadequacies in learning?
  
  
•  What did Judge Robiner actually decide, and what does it mean for education clause jurisprudence?
  

   Now the