Landmark Suit Takes New
Approach to Education Reform

On May 17th, the 46th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, civil rights groups and attorneys in California filed the most comprehensive lawsuit concerning the bare minimums required for education ever to be brought against a state. The suit was filed jointly by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Northern California and San Diego; Morrison & Foerster; Public Advocates, Inc.; Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Newman, Aaronson, Vanaman; Center for Law in the Public Interest; Asian Pacific American Legal Center, Karl Mannheim; Allan Ides, and Peter Edelman.

The lawsuit, Williams v. State of California, extends the arc of education-related civil rights litigation by holding the State of California accountable for failing to maintain minimal standards in many of the stateâs schools, especially those located in communities of color, economically struggling communities and immigrant communities.

It examines the basic learning conditions in California schools and finds that many students face a lack of materials and basic resources, including: a shortage of textbooks and other learning materials, outdated or defaced textbooks, no basic school supplies, no access to a library, not enough access to computers and computer instruction, not enough labs, not enough lab materials, no access to music or art classes and too few guidance counselors.

In addition, students are regularly subjected to inadequate instruction. At some schools, as few as 13% of teachers have full teaching credentials, teacher vacancies go chronically unfilled, and schools rely heavily on substitute teachers in place of permanent teachers. What teachers there are must teach in massively overcrowded classroom, where there are not enough seats and desks and students sit on countertops. Multitrack schedules curtail the calendar length of courses, preventing continuous, year-to-year study in a given subject and often forcing students to take key exams before completing the full course of study.

Degraded, unhealthful facilities and conditions further impair student learning throughout California. Children must contend with broken or nonexistent air conditioning or heating systems; toilets that donât work; water fountains that donât work; broken windows, walls, and ceilings; infestations of rats, mice, and cockroaches; and leaky roofs and mold.

ãThese are schools that shock the conscience, schools where students canât learn and teachers canât teach,ä said Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director of the ACLU of Southern California. ãThese schools are the shame of California.ä ãThe stateâs neglect has a clearly discriminatory impact,ä noted Julie Su, Litigation Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

In fact, data from the California Department of Education show that 96.4% of the population in the 18 schools named in the complaint consists of students of color, compared to 59% statewide. Teacher training levels are inversely correlated with percentages of students of color, students who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunch and students who are learning English. At Edison-McNair Academy, in Northern California, for instance, 70% of students have special needs as English learners, yet 75% of teachers have ãemergencyä credentials and lack the necessary training even to teach English-speaking students.

The suit names as defendants the State of California, Superintendent Delaine Eastin, the state Board of Education, and the California Department of Education. Charges include violations of Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, numerous California civil rights laws and the California Constitution itself, which guarantees a ãfree and commonä education to all students. According to UCLA Law Professor Gary Blasi, who recently produced a report entitled Who is Accountable to Our Schoolchildren: Conditions in California Public Schools at the Beginning of the Millennium, there is no coherent oversight in Californiaâs public school system.

ãWe have no clear standards regarding most of the conditions in which we expect children to learn,ä said Blasi. ãWe have no effective standards regarding the textbooks we give them or the teachers we pay to teach them. Where we do have vague and general standards, virtually nothing is done to enforce them. Workplaces, restaurants, even apartment buildings are routinely inspected. But not schools. And, when serious problems do become known, as the result of the work of journalists and others, there is no system of enforcement or corrective action.ä

The lawsuit seeks an end to this incoherent and unresponsive system. ãForty-six years ago today, the Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education rejected a system of inequality that had come to be accepted by many in this country as a natural state of affairs,ä said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. ãToday, weâre asking this country to reject another system of unequal education, a system that blocks some children from learning and growing to their full potential. We have the resources to provide all children with a good education and we cannot afford to do anything less.ä