Rodriguez at Fifty: Lessons Learned on the Road to a Right to a High-Quality Education for All Students
![handle is hein.journals/luclj55 and id is 379 raw text is: Rodriguez at Fifty: Lessons Learned on the Road to a
Right to a High-Quality Education for All Students
Kimberly Jenkins Robinson*
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is
long, but it bends toward justice.
Martin Luther King Jr.1
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 343
I. LESSONS LEARNED IN THE BATTLES FOR EQUITABLE AND ADEQUATE
SCH O OL FU N D IN G .................................................................... 346
II. THE ROAD TO A HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL STUDENTS.. 354
CONCLUSION......................................................................................... 359
INTRODUCTION
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's deci-
sion in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez that our
Constitution does not guarantee a fundamental right to education.2 This
anniversary is no cause for celebration. However, it does invite our na-
tion to reflect on the lessons learned since the decision and, most im-
portantly, how our nation can build on those lessons to ensure that all
students have access to a high-quality education. Thank you for the
* Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law, Director, Education
Law Institute. I am grateful for the excellent research assistance of Maya Artis, Madeline Daniels
and Abigail Jones. Some of this work draws upon a lecture that I delivered at the symposium 50
Years after San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez: New and Old Fights for Equity
in Public Schools, hosted by Virginia Law Review Online on February 17, 2023. See UVA Law
Review Symposium, (Feb. 22, 2023, 7:38:21 AM), https://www.law.virgiia.edu/sites/default/file
s/transcripts/Robinson.pdf [https://perma.cc/G24D-DBV7]. This Essay is dedicated to Charles J.
Ogletree, Jr., mentor, friend, and co-editor of THE ENDURING LEGACY OF RODRIGUEZ: CREATING
NEW PATHWAYS TO EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY (2015).
1. Martin Luther King Jr., Address at the Conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March (Mar.
25, 1965), in A CALL TO CONSCIENCE: THE LANDMARK SPEECHES OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING,
JR. 131 (Clayborne Carson & Kris Shepard eds., 2001).
2. San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 35 (1973) (Education, of course, is
not among the rights afforded explicit protection under our Federal Constitution. Nor do we find
any basis for saying it is implicitly so protected.).
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Rodriguez at Fifty: Lessons Learned on the Road to a Right to a High-Quality Education for All Students
Rodriguez at Fifty: Lessons Learned on the Road to a Right to a High-Quality Education for All Students