Opinion ID: 1910318
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: summary judgment hearing on coalition's equal protection and substantive due process claims

Text: On remand, the Coalition moved for a final judgment order under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-1315(1) (Cum. Supp. 2006), and the school district moved for summary judgment on the Coalition's third and fourth causes of action: violation of its members' equal protection and substantive due process rights. At the hearing, the Coalition submitted affidavits stating that (1) the school district had made financial cuts to the Decatur school, while providing improvements and benefits for the Lyons school, and (2) this funding deprivation had caused a decline in enrollment at Decatur as the facilities became inferior to those in Lyons. A former teacher stated in an affidavit that parents of children in the Decatur school had been opting to send their children to Lyons. She stated that the parents did not believe the children were receiving an equal education. The Coalition argued that the school district's unequal funding of the Lyons and Decatur schools violated its members' equal protection and substantive due process rights. To support those constitutional claims, the Coalition argued that Nebraska's free instruction clause [6] provided a fundamental right to an education equally or proportionally funded compared with other schools in the same district. It further argued that the school district's underfunding of the Decatur school had deprived those students of their substantive due process rights. The school district countered that the free instruction clause did not provide a fundamental right to have schools in the same district equally or proportionately funded. It further argued the Coalition did not have a fundamental right to identical facilities or offerings as other schools or to choose where a child attends school. Finally, it pointed out that the Coalition did not allege the school district had failed to educate Decatur children or that it had charged them tuition. Absent a fundamental right, the school district argued that the school district had offered a rational basis for moving the grades to Lyons. In February 2006, the court granted the school district's motion for summary judgment on the Coalition's equal protection and substantive due process claims. It denied the Coalition's motion for final judgment as moot and dismissed the Coalition's complaint with prejudice.