Court Opinion

ID: 9430667
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:18.728146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:25.593387
License: Public Domain

Justice Powell,
with whom The Chief Justice and Justice Rehnquist join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
The public record refutes petitioners’ equal protection claims that the disparities in funding from various school lands detrimentally affects students and schools in school dis*296tricts within the Chickasaw Cession. Statistics from Mississippi’s State Department of Education show the statewide ranking of school districts in terms of expenditures per pupil. In this ranking, the Chickasaw Cession districts are scattered widely among the State’s 154 school districts. Moreover, far from being a “critical element of school funding in Mississippi,” as alleged by petitioners, the Sixteenth Section lands account for only 114% of overall funds provided for schools.1 I therefore find no basis for the assumption that petitioners can prove that students in Chickasaw Cession districts have been detrimentally affected by this differential, and I do not believe that petitioners have asserted an equal protection claim that can survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).2
M
A brief procedural history is helpful m putting this litigation in perspective. Petitioners include a group of county school boards, superintendents of education, and individual schoolchildren, all residing in the Chickasaw Cession counties in north Mississippi. In June 1981, petitioners sued numerous federal and state officials, attacking the difference between, on the one hand, payments from Sixteenth Section lands in other school districts (the Chocktaw area) and, on the other hand, payments from the State of Mississippi’s trust fund to school districts within the Chickasaw Cession in place of income from the Chickasaw school lands.
The complaint recounted alleged “illegalities” as far back as the Northwest Territory Ordinance of 1785. It sought to have various federal statutes that “purport to authorize, validate or confirm” sales of the Sixteenth Section lands declared *297“unlawful, void and unenforceable, including but not limited to (a) the Act of July 4, 1936; (b) the Act of May 19, 1852; (c) the Act of March 3, 1857; (d) any other acts of Congress having said effect.” App. 16 (citations omitted).
The complaint also alleged that both the federal and state defendants had breached perpetual and binding obligations of “an express/constructive trust”: the federal defendants by permitting the State to breach the trust through various statutes (e. g., the Northwest Territory Ordinance), and the state defendants by unlawfully selling the relevant properties and by ill-advisedly investing the proceeds of that sale. The complaint further alleged violations of due process by denial of “free appropriate public education” and — of relevance to the case as it stands before this Court — violations of equal protection by disparate distribution of certain funds and by infringement upon the “fundamental rights” of “a suspect class” to “a minimally adequate level of education.” Finally, the complaint alleged impairment of obligation of contract and taking without just compensation.
Petitioners sought wide-ranging relief, including conveyance to them of properties or money of a value equivalent to that of the relevant school lands and compensation for the income from 1832 to present that petitioners “would have received ... if such lands had been subjected to such prudent use and reasonable management.” Petitioners also sought to obtain new lands as substitution for those lost, “which may include offshore oil, gas and other mineral rights.” Petitioners additionally sought to “enjoin” and “direct” the defendants to establish “a fund or funds of such value” as was necessary to provide “hereafter” and “in perpetuity” annual income to Chickasaw Cession school districts. Finally, petitioners demanded that the defendants take other steps to “eliminate and compensate and for the future guarantee and protect Plaintiffs and the Plaintiff class against . . . denials *298and deprivations of their rights to due process of law and to the equal protection of the laws.”3
The District Court held that the claims against the Federal Government were barred by sovereign immunity, laches, and statutes of limitations. This order was not appealed. In a separate order, the District Court held that any monetary remedy was barred by the Eleventh Amendment — a holding affirmed by the Court of Appeals and by this Court today. I agree with this disposition. I also would not reach the issues raised by allegations of the denial of a “fundamental right” to “a minimally adequate education.” See ante, at 285. I do not, however, agree with the Court’s holding that petitioners’ equal protection allegations regarding the disparate distribution of funds present a claim of sufficient substance to survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
I — I HH
The Court begins the discussion of petitioners’ equal protection claim, ante, at 283-292, by acknowledging that it is appropriate for the Court to take notice of “relevant facts obtained from the public record in the light most favorable to the petitioners.” Ante, at 283. The most recent figures available *299from the State Department of Education of Mississippi, read in such a light, fatally undercut petitioners’ equal protection claims.
It is alleged — and here accepted as true — that there is a disparity between the payments from the Sixteenth Section lands in the Chocktaw districts and the payments from the State of Mississippi’s trust fund to Chickasaw districts.4 The complaint characterizes this disparity as an “unjust, inequitable and unconstitutional deprivation of the rights of the children of the Chickasaw Cession counties.” App. 2. The Court reads the complaint as alleging that this unequal distribution of such funds acts “to the detriment of the Chickasaw Cession schools and their students,” ante, at 288. The complaint, however, contains no factual assertions other than this disparity to support these conclusory allegations, nor is there any basis for believing a detriment could ever be proved. As shown in Table A, the various per pupil expenditures in petitioners’ school districts are comparable to, and in some cases higher than, the average for districts within the Chocktaw area. And the Sixteenth Section payments — as the figures in Table B demonstrate beyond argument — are an insignificant part of the total payments from all sources made to Mississippi’s school districts.
The Court does not question these data. It instead states that petitioners “have limited themselves to challenging discrimination in the Sixteenth Section” program, and, relying on that limitation, “decline[s] the dissent’s invitation to look at school receipts overall.” Ante, at 288-289, n. 17. The Court thereby ignores the undisputed facts concerning the *300funding of public education in the State of Mississippi, and instead bases its equal protection analysis on 114% of the overall funds provided for public secondary and elementary schools in the State. The Equal Protection Clause, at least in the context of a state funding of schools, is concerned with substance, not with the de minimis variations of funding among the districts.
Table A in the Appendix to this opinion, “School Finances,” shows that Chickasaw Cession school districts are in fact distributed throughout a financial ranking of all the State’s school districts, whether the measure used is “Current Expenditure per Pupil,” “Current Expenditure per Pupil for Instruction Cost,” or “Current Expenditure per Pupil . . . Less Transportation.” Specifically, the Table shows that the statewide average per pupil expenditure was $1965.78, of which $1,261.09 went towards “instructional cost.” All but 6 of the 39 school districts within the Chickasaw Cession districts spent within $300 of the per pupil average expenditure; all but two spent within $200 of the average per pupil instructional expenditure. The per pupil expenditure was over $1,400 in the Chickasaw district with the lowest per pupil expenditure, and over $2,400 in the Chickasaw district with the highest expenditure. In the light of these figures of expenditures per pupil, I cannot believe that $74.71 — the alleged difference between the average per pupil payment from Sixteenth Section lands and the average per pupil payment from the State’s trust fund in place of the Chickasaw school lands — creates a “detriment” to the students and schools within the Chickasaw Cession and thereby gives rise to a violation of equal protection under the rational-relation standard.5
*301Although the figures of expenditures per pupil are fatal to petitioners’ claims, a second set of statistics provides an additional reason to conclude that an equal protection claim concerning alleged disparities in Sixteenth Section lands should not survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). As shown in Table B, “Receipts for Public Schools,” payments received from Sixteenth Section lands in 1984-1985, $16,272,925, accounted for less than 154% of total “Receipts for Public Schools” throughout the State. These Sixteenth Section payments are dwarfed by income from state and federal funds of over $752 million (totaling 74% of “Receipts for Public Schools”). Variations among school districts of such a small part of the total receipts cannot support a claim of a violation of the Equal Protection Clause in the provision of education for the children of the Chickasaw Cession districts.6
*302J — I HH
Petitioners equal protection claims cannot survive a motion under Federal Rule Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) in the light of the distribution of Chickasaw Cession districts throughout the statewide rankings of various expenditures per pupil ,and the insignificance of the Sixteenth Section funds relative to the total receipts for education. Accordingly, I dissent.
*303APPENDIX TO OPINION OF POWELL, J.
Table A
School Finances!
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*308Table B
Receipts for Public Schools 1984-1985
Source of State Funds:
State Dept, of Ed. $ 9,005,760
Per Capita & Minimum Program 490,568,205
Vocational Ed. 16,269,064
Chickasaw 61,454
Homestead Exemption 30,916,541
EFC Payments 2,898,692
Severance Tax 10,290,972
Driver Penalty Funds 555,963
Textbook 6,110,596
School Lunch 574,624
Adult Ed. 35,619
Educable Children 511,070
Ed. Reform Act 985,796
Other 153,766
Total State Funds $ 568,938,122 56.1%
Source of Federal Funds:
State Dept. Ed. $ 6,293,149
Vocational Ed. 3,540,422
National Forest 3,247,726
TVA 643,509
P. L. 874 2,657,490
ECIA Ch. 1 64,896,618
ECIA Ch. 2 4,388,330
ESEA Other 107,118
OEO 151,860
Soc. See. Tit. XX & CETA(Emp. See. Comm.) 1,677,019
School Lunch & Sp. Milk & Nonfood Asst. 67,638,280
School Lunch, Commodities, Food 12,660,094
Adult Ed. 745,079
Education Handicapped Act 11,347,044
Other (e.g., CETA Governor’s Office) 3,403,978
Total Federal Funds $ 183,397,716 18.1%
*309Source of Local Funds:
Ad Valorem Tax $ 165,985,203
Mineral Lease Tax 86,276
Tuition from Patrons 1,991,041
Transp. Fees from Patrons 222,585
Sixteen Section Income 16,272,925
Interest on Investments 12,800,202
Intermediate Source 816,620
Bond & Int. Fund Receipts 25,405,580
School Lunch 24,668,351
Student Activity 7,063,639
Other 5,809,634
Total Local Sources $ 261,122,056 25.8%
Total Revenue Receipts $1,013,457,894 100.0%
Nonrevenue Receipts:
Sale of Bonds $ 33,393,809
Sale of Assets 1,603,699
Insurance Loss Recovery 3,383,380
Loans 10,357,549
Total NonRevenue Receipts $ 48,738,437
Total Revenue & NonRevenue Receipts $1,062,196,331
SOURCE: Mississippi State Board of Education, 1986 Annual Report of the State Superintendent of Public Education 48 (1986).

 Mississippi State Department of Education, 1986 Annual Report of the State Superintendent of Public Education (1986). Tables A and B, infra, are taken from this Report, pp. 144-146 and 48, respectively.

 I agree with the Court that most of petitioners’ claims are barred by the Eleventh Amendment, and therefore join Part II of the Court’s opinion.

 One rarely sees a complaint that is as sweeping in its allegations and as duplicative in its requests for relief. Apparently, no question was raised by respondents or the District Court as to whether in signing this complaint, counsel for petitioners complied with Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. That Rule reads in pertinent part: “The signature of an attorney or party constitutes a certificate by him that he has read the pleading, motion, or other paper, that to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief formed after reasonable inquiry it is well grounded in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law, and that it is not interposed for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation.”
Despite the wide-ranging complaint, the only alleged denial of equal protection is with respect to the funding in the Chickasaw Cession school districts. As noted swpra, at 296, these funds are only 172% of overall funding for elementary and secondary schools within the State.

 The Court states that this disparity is $75.34 versus $0.63. The Court of Appeals and the petition for certiorari give the relevant figures as $31.25 and $0.80. Papasan v. United States, 756 F. 2d, 1087, 1091 (CA5 1985); Pet. for Cert. 4. The former figures are derived from an unaudited aggregation of reports by individual school districts presented in a November 1984 report on the Chickasaw Cession districts from the State Auditor and the Secretary of State. App. 35. As this case arose from a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, I use the disparity most favorable to the plaintiffs: $74.71.

 The State distributes its funds equally throughout Mississippi’s school districts on the basis of “teacher unit[s].” See Miss. Code Ann. §§ 37-19-3 and 37-19-5 (Supp. 1985); Tr. Oral Arg. 32. As in many States, total funding among districts in Mississippi varies depending upon local ad valo-rem taxes and other district sources. See Table B; see also San Antonio *301Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1, 49 (1973). Discrepancies from Sixteenth Section lands are frequently offset in part or entirely by ad valorem taxes, and the variations in local funding from sources other than Sixteenth Section lands are almost always greater than the alleged “disparity” relied on in this ease. See Annual Report, supra n. 1, at 94-98 (listing revenue receipts by local sources).

 There is another reason to dismiss petitioner’s claims. The system of financing Mississippi’s public schools bears a substantial similarity to the financing arrangement in the State of Texas upheld by this Court. San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, supra. In Rodriguez, almost half of the revenues for funding elementary and secondary schools came from a large state-funded program designed to provide a basic minimal education in every school. Each school district then would supplement state and federal funds through an ad valorem tax on property within its jurisdiction. Similarly, Mississippi provides each district with funds to support a “minimum program of education.” See Miss. Code Ann. § 37-19-1 et seq. (1972 and Supp. 1985). These funds constitute over half of the receipts for public schools; federal funds constitute another 18%. Of the remaining receipts for Mississippi’s school districts, ad valorem taxes, which are levied by, and vary among, the local school districts, account for over two-thirds. See Table B, infra. Mississippi’s financing system, like that of Texas, “[wjhile assuring a basic education for every child in the State, . . . permits and encourages a large measure of participation and *302control of each district’s schools,at the local level.” Rodriguez, supra, at 49.
I also note that Mississippi has taken numerous steps to ensure the adequacy of the most important single factor in education: the quality of the teachers. The State has established a Commission on Teacher and Administrator Education to oversee the training, certification, and evaluation of public school teachers throughout Mississippi. Miss. Code Ann. § 37-3-2 (Supp. 1985). There is a guaranteed minimum for teachers’ salaries that may be augmented by the local districts, §§ 37-19-7 and 37-19-15, a scale of pay increases based on tenure and merit, § 37-19-7, a guarantee of no reduction in any local supplements to salary, § 37-19-11, a set of minimum standards for teachers’ competency, § 37-19-9, and a requirement that all teachers employed after July 1, 1975, take the “national teachers examination,” § 37-19-13.