No child needs to use a closet for a classroom. There is enough money. No one needs to ration crayons, books or toilet paper. They look at equity for all and see it spelling excellence for none. This, then, is the dread that seems to lie beneath the tear of equalizing.
Equity is seen as dispossession.
Local autonomy is seen as liberty-even if the poverty of those in nearby cities robs them of all meaningful autonomy by narrowing their choices to the meanest and the shabbiest of options. In this way, defendants in these cases seem to polarize two of the principles that lie close to the origins of this republic. Liberty and equity are seen as antibodies to each other. There is some irony in this as well. Conservatives are generally the ones who speak more passionately of patriotic values.