Opinion ID: 4528343
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application to Plaintiffs’ Claims

Text: As noted above, to state an equal protection claim, a plaintiff must allege both a difference in treatment from others and that this difference cannot be supported by a sufficiently important governmental interest. E.g., Ctr. For Bio-Ethical Reform, 648 F.3d at 379. But the current version of Plaintiffs’ complaint fails to demonstrate disparate treatment, because it focuses on school conditions and inadequately alleges state policies or actions that caused those conditions within Plaintiffs’ schools and not in others. Plaintiffs’ allegations thus fail to highlight any difference in treatment that suggests the state discriminated against them, and so they have failed to adequately allege that “the government treated [Plaintiffs] disparately as compared to similarly situated persons.” Jolivette, 694 F.3d at 771 (quoting Ctr. For Bio-Ethical Reform, 648 F.3d at 379); see also, e.g., Scarbrough, 470 F.3d at 260 (“The threshold element of an equal protection claim is disparate treatment . . . .”). The primary comparison Plaintiffs allege between their own schools and others in the state is that Plaintiffs’ schools face significantly worse “performance data,” which is based on state proficiency tests in several subject matter areas. (Compl., R. 1 at PageID #65–76.) For example, Plaintiffs allege that in their schools, low-single-digit percentages of students are rated as “proficient or above” in English, compared to a state average in the mid-to-high forties. (Id. at #8–10, #65–69.) The same is true for several other subject matter areas, with some schools scoring as low as 0% proficient in certain areas. 10 In a later case, the Supreme Court may have attempted to limit this holding. See Kadrmas v. Dickinson Pub. Sch., 487 U.S. 450, 459 (1988) (“We have not extended [Plyler’s] holding beyond the ‘unique circumstances’ that provoked its ‘unique confluence of theories and rationales.’” (citation omitted) (first quoting Plyler, 457 U.S. at 239 (Powell, J., concurring); and then quoting Plyler, 457 U.S. at 243 (Burger, C.J., dissenting))); see also Justin Driver, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind 360–61 (2018). But it is unclear why the “unique circumstances” of Plyler would be limited to the immigration context, as opposed to any case in which a discrete group of children—though not a protected class—is denied a basic education. Nos. 18-1855/1871 Gary B., et al. v. Whitmer, et al. Page 24 But the Constitution cannot guarantee educational outcomes, and while performance outcome data provides some insight into access to education, the differences in these numbers are not supported by additional allegations suggesting, for example, that Defendants provided different levels of financial resources to other schools across the state. Plaintiffs’ articulation of the state action being challenged is necessary to assess that action’s rationality, see, e.g., San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 44–55 (1973), and to determine whether attendees of Plaintiffs’ schools are in fact a “discrete group” being denied a basic education when compared to the rest of the state, see Plyler, 457 U.S. at 223–34, 230. Plaintiffs also suggest that the conditions faced in their schools are different from those in other schools throughout Michigan, particularly those in “schools serving predominantly white, affluent student populations.” (Compl., R. 1 at PageID #4–5.) But while Plaintiffs extensively describe the conditions found in their own schools, they include almost no allegations regarding these comparator schools or what Defendants did differently with respect to them. Similarly, while Plaintiffs’ brief claims that Defendants “operate a system in which most schools do provide access to literacy, and some do not” (Pls.’ Br. at 52), their complaint does not adequately allege how the successful schools are operated or how Defendants treated them differently. Nor do Plaintiffs sufficiently point to policies implemented or enforced by Defendants, other than school assignments, that separate students into discrete groups and deprive one or more of them of a basic minimum education. One policy discussed in the complaint might, standing alone, implicate equal protection—it concerns the provision allowing the hiring of “noncertificated, nonendorsed teacher[s]” only in the Detroit school district. (Compl., R. 1 at PageID #59–60, #106.) But without tying any disparity to a specific policy or action taken by Defendants that caused differences in school resources or conditions, we cannot assess whether that action or policy furthers a sufficient governmental objective. Plaintiffs largely fault the district court’s decision for using the wrong comparator in assessing their claim of disparate treatment. In its opinion, the district court correctly noted that “Plaintiffs have not challenged a statewide funding scheme, a specific statute, or any particular decisions by Defendants applicable to all Michigan schools.” Gary B., 329 F. Supp. 3d at 367. Nos. 18-1855/1871 Gary B., et al. v. Whitmer, et al. Page 25 Thus, the district court reasoned that Plaintiffs’ complaint had to be based on Defendants’ specific interventions in Detroit schools, and so the appropriate comparators were “other Michigan schools that have come under the control of emergency managers” or were otherwise taken over by the state. Id. But Plaintiffs argue that this misconstrues their claim, which is based on Defendants’ management of the state education system as a whole: “While the State has ensured adequate resources and properly certificated teachers in other schools sufficient to provide students with access to literacy, it has made no such provision for Plaintiffs’ schools— instead allowing those schools to deteriorate to the point of providing no meaningful education at all.” (Pls.’ Br. at 49.) This point is well taken. If Plaintiffs’ argument is that the state has supervisory authority over the Michigan public school system, and that every other school (or almost every other school) in this system is given the resources needed to provide access to literacy, but theirs is not, it is hard to see why only schools that experienced more direct state interventions are the correct comparators.11 But as discussed above, Plaintiffs have not identified which state policy or action they are challenging as discriminatory, regardless of what comparator is used. Without this threshold allegation, their equal protection claim cannot survive. While Plaintiffs’ complaint also lists a cause of action for race-based discrimination, in their brief on appeal, the only discussion of race in the equal protection context is the statement that Plaintiffs are “a group of almost entirely low-income children of color.” (Pls.’ Br. at 45.) Nor do Plaintiffs argue in this Court that strict scrutiny should apply due to any race-based classification. Thus, they have abandoned this theory on appeal. E.g., In re Darvocet, Darvon, and Propoxyphene Prods. Liab. Litig., 756 F.3d 917, 936 n.6 (6th Cir. 2014); Risch v. Royal Oak Police Dep’t, 581 F.3d 383, 390 (6th Cir. 2009). Nor have Plaintiffs adequately pleaded disparate treatment based on race. In their complaint, Plaintiffs claim to be “a discrete class—nearly all children of color and low-income— who have been excluded from the access to literacy that public education provides to other 11 This statewide approach may open itself to statewide justifications by Defendants, though. See, e.g., Rodriguez, 411 U.S. at 44–55 (upholding Texas’s school-funding regime as justified by local autonomy concerns, despite uneven results). That said, there is no need to address the viability of such a claim in the first instance here. Nos. 18-1855/1871 Gary B., et al. v. Whitmer, et al. Page 26 students in the State of Michigan.” (Compl., R. 1 at PageID #18.) Plaintiffs further note that the students at their schools are all over 95% people of color (over 97% African American in four cases, and 64.2% Latino and 31.1% African American in the fifth), and that the vast majority are entitled to free or reduced-price lunch (a proxy for their socioeconomic status). But they fail to make any specific allegations showing Defendants’ different treatment of predominantly white schools; conclusory statements that merely allude to race-based discrimination are not sufficient. (See, e.g., id. at #53 (“The State’s period of control has been marked by decisions affecting the education of minority children that would never be permitted in predominantly white school districts.”).) This is not to say it is impossible for Plaintiffs to allege an equal protection claim in this case. After all, Plyler said that, “[i]f the State is to deny a discrete group of innocent children the free public education that it offers to other children residing within its borders, that denial must be justified by a showing that it furthers some substantial state interest.” 457 U.S. at 230. It also implied that a “basic education” is the standard at issue, id. at 223, and so a state action that results in the provision of a not-even-basic education could be subject to the same increased scrutiny. To state such a claim, Plaintiffs must identify the actions taken or policies implemented by Defendants that treated their schools differently from others in the state and caused the disparities at issue in this case. Since the current version of their complaint fails to do this, the dismissal of Plaintiffs’ equal protection claims must be affirmed.