Court Opinion

ID: 9662652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:14:47.720878+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:41.121606
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join in Part I of the majority opinion holding that free transportation for students to and from school is not constitutionally mandated under the North Dakota Constitution. I dissent, however, from the equal protection analysis. I would hold that North Dakota Century Code § 15-34.-2-06.1 and the Dickinson School District policies, as applied to these plaintiffs, violate Article I, § 22, of the North Dakota Constitution. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the district court.
My point of departure with the majority is its reliance on Shaffer v. Board of School Directors, 687 F.2d 718 (3 Cir.1982); Sutton v. Cadillac Area Public Schools, 117 Mich.App. 38, 323 N.W.2d 582 (1982); and Harrison v. Morehouse Parish School Board, 368 So.2d 1113 (La.Ct.App.1979), for its conclusion that under the North Dakota Constitution, the rational basis standard of review is appropriate for a wealth-based equal protection challenge to legislation authorizing a fee to be charged for transportation and that the legislation so reviewed passes constitutional muster. These cases rest on the proposition that, under the federal Constitution, education is not a fundamental right. San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973). They provide little support and less guidance for holding that in North Dakota, where education is a fundamental right, one guaranteed by the North Dakota Constitution, access to that fundamental right is not important enough to be reviewed with stricter scrutiny than we review purely economic legislation.
The question before us, which the cases cited by the majority do not help us decide, is whether transportation provided by a school district is an important substantive right so as to warrant an intermediate standard of review which affords no presumption of constitutionality to the legislation authorizing a fee to be charged for this transportation.
We hold in this case that free busing is not constitutionally mandated. However, neither is a criminal appeal. Yet, an indigent criminal defendant is entitled to access to the appellate process. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891 (1956); Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353, 83 S.Ct. 814, 9 L.Ed.2d 811 (1963). While wealth alone may not be sufficient to require strict judicial scrutiny, where wealth-based discrimination coalesces with an important individual interest, an intermediate standard of review is appropriate. Griffin, supra; Douglas, supra; Plyler v. Dole, 457 U.S. 202, 102 S.Ct. 2382, 72 L.Ed.2d 786 (1982). See also State v. Carpenter, 301 N.W.2d 106 (N.D.1980). Griffin and Douglas recognized that without an attorney or a transcript, an appeal is meaningless. So too, without access to education, the right to education is meaningless. Furthermore, unlike the right to appeal, the right to education is a fundamental right under our State Constitution. In re G.H., 218 N.W.2d 441 (N.D.1974).
In Plyler, supra, the United States Supreme Court recognized that education plays a fundamental role in society. Under review in Plyler was a Texas statute limiting public education funds to citizens and aliens, resulting in local policies requiring tuition to be paid by illegal aliens. The Court employed an intermediate standard of review under which the deprivation of education would be constitutionally sound only if it furthered a substantial goal of the State. No such goals were demonstrated and so the Court found a violation of the equal protection clause under the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution.
In a rural state like ours, it is clear that transportation is extremely important to *905education. Without transportation, some children would be literally cut off from education. I would therefore apply an intermediate level of scrutiny to the statute in question to determine whether there is a close correspondence between the statutory classification and the legislative goals the statute was designed to achieve. Hanson v. Williams County, 389 N.W.2d 319 (N.D.1986).
The only goal the State can assert to support the statute and its burden on the poor is a financial goal. The objective must be that it is necessary to raise more money than is provided by taxation. However, there is evidence that the district could provide busing to the poor within its present budget without cutting other services. It is also noteworthy that athletes are bused to athletic competitions without charge. Each of us is aware of the economic recession in our State. The energy and agricultural sectors are seriously depressed. We read and hear about the need to cut back, to pull in our belts. Nonetheless, our need to conserve financial resources may not be implemented by depleting our constitutional resources. Our “concern for the preservation of [financial] resources standing alone can hardly justify the classification used in allocating those resources.” Plyler, supra, 457 U.S. at 227, 102 S.Ct. at 2400 (citing Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 374-375, 91 S.Ct. 1848, 1853, 29 L.Ed.2d 534 (1971)).
The school district’s policies in implementing NDCC § 15-34.2-06.1 are to charge the same fee to all families whose children ride the bus. No waiver of transportation fee has ever been made, nor has the fee ever been modified. There is no consideration of a family’s income in setting the fee. Thus, where an indigent parent is unable to pay for transportation, she is simply out of luck. The trial court found the gross income of one plaintiff to be at or near poverty level, and the income of the second plaintiff substantially below the poverty income level. While I agree with the majority that parents share with the State the obligation to transport their children to school, both the State and the school district must recognize that some parents are financially unable to fulfill this obligation without onerous consequences. Because the statute and the policies implementing that statute exclude the plaintiffs, solely because of their indigency, from the exercise of an important right, i.e., to participate in busing provided by the school district, I believe they do not operate uniformly and violate Article I, § 22 of the North Dakota Constitution. I would therefore reverse the district court judgment.
As for the majority’s treatment of the nonreorganized-reorganized classification, I would decline to consider the issue because it was raised only in the reply brief. We are thus without the benefit of a responsive brief. We have often said that we do not consider constitutional issues not properly raised. I believe that principle should prevail here. We need to preserve our limited judicial resources and I would refrain from undertaking the resolution of a constitutional question raised in a reply brief. This is not the heavy artillery we have preached is necessary for constitutional questions.
I therefore concur in the first portion of the opinion. From the remainder, I respectfully dissent.
LEVINE and MESCHKE, JJ., concur.