Taller en idioma inglés – comisión 1

Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales

Universidad Nacional de La Plata

The Constitutional Compromise to Guarantee Education

Derek W. Black

Although the U.S. Supreme Court refused to recognize education as a fundamental right in San
Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the Court in several other cases has
emphasized the possibility that the Constitution might afford some protection for education.
New litigation is attempting to fill that void. This litigation comes at a perfect time. Segregation,
poverty, and achievement gaps are all rising, while state courts and federal agencies have
recently retreated from enforcing educational equity. New litigation, however, has yet to offer a
theory of why the Constitution should protect students’ educational rights, relying instead on the
fact that the Court has consistently emphasized the importance of education. Prompting a
significant doctrinal shift to protect education will require more than laudatory dicta. It will
require a compelling affirmative constitutional theory. This Article offers that theory. It
demonstrates that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically intended to guarantee
education as a right of state citizenship. This simple concept was obscured by the unusually
complex ratification of the Amendment. First, the Amendment required the assent of
Confederate states that were no longer part of the Union. Second, Congress expressly indicated
that it would not readmit those states to the Union until they ratified the Fourteenth Amendment
and rewrote their state constitutions. Third, education was part of the deal: Congress permitted
states to retain discretion over education but expected state constitutions to affirmatively
guarantee education. Through this process, education became an implicit right of the Fourteenth
Amendment’s Citizenship Clause. As a right of state citizenship and consistent with historical
practices and goals, this Article argues that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from
partisan and other illegitimate manipulations of educational opportunity.

Citation: lack, Derek W., The Constitutional Compromise to Guarantee Education (June 7,
2017). Stanford Law Review, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2982509

A. Reading comprehension
1. Read the abstract above. Can you identify the three moves present in this
text? Separate them with square brackets and name them.

2. What is the overall purpose of this article?

 a. To propose a new constitutional theory to ultimately protect the right to
education
b. To study cases and legislation and, in this way, show that education is
protected
c. To analyze why the US Supreme Court protects education through their
decisions

3. Answer the following questions.

a. Does the US Constitution explicitly protect education? Support your answer.
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

b. What does the writer feel is required from both the new cases and the
Constitution in connection with education rights?
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________

c. What did writers of the Fourteenth Amendment try to do?

_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________

d. Does the author agree? Support your answer.

_______________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________

4. Provide four key words for the abstract.

_______________ _______________ _______________ _________________

B. Grammar
1. Find examples of the following verb forms and provide their subjects:

Tense example subject

Simple present

Simple present

Simple past
Taller en idioma inglés – comisión 1
Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales
Universidad Nacional de La Plata

Simple past

Present perfect

Present perfect

3. Look the underlined words in the text. Can you find the referents in the text?
a. the Court: ______________________________
b. This: ______________________________
c. It: ______________________________
d. that: ______________________________
e. It: ______________________________
f. This simple concept: ______________________________
g. their: ______________________________

4. Look at the noun phrases extracted from the text. Find the head
noun in each example.

a. students’ educational rights

_______________________________________________________________

b. a compelling affirmative constitutional theory

_______________________________________________________________

c. the unusually complex ratification of the Amendment

_______________________________________________________________

d. an implicit right of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause

_______________________________________________________________

5. Find the four adverbs in the text: