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Chalkbeat
State board member: Michigan should side
with Detroit students in ‘right to literacy’ lawsuit
By Lori Higgins
Michigan wants to toss a historic “right to literacy” lawsuit filed on
behalf of Detroit schoolchildren, but a state board of education member
is urging officials to side with the students who’ve sued the state
over the quality of their education.
Lawyers from the state have asked the federal appeals court to throw
out the lawsuit, saying the case is now moot because there is new state
leadership, including a new governor, and because the district is now
locally run again.
But board member Pamela Pugh said in a letter Tuesday that “special
compensation is needed” for the Detroit Public Schools Community
District students who weren’t adequately educated when the state was in
control of the district, from 1999 to 2005 and again from 2009 to 2016.
“In my opinion, this robbed Detroit children of the basic right to
literacy, a fundamental right which I believe should be determined to
be guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, as well as other constitutional
rights which require literacy skills,” said Pugh, a Democrat from
Saginaw and the board’s vice president.
The students’ case is the first made in federal court arguing that
access to literacy is a right.
Eric Restuccia, the state’s deputy solicitor general, wrote in the
Friday filing that state officials are no longer “the proper parties to
provide the relief plaintiffs seek in their complaint.”
The lawsuit, which has been closely watched by education, civil rights
and legal experts across the U.S., was filed more than two years ago.
It has sought to hold state officials responsible for systemwide
failures that the plaintiffs say have deprived Detroit children of
their right to literacy, left many classrooms and buildings in terrible
condition, and left teachers without the resources they needed to do
their jobs.
The conditions persisted, they say, while the state was in control of
the school district.
The lawsuit seeks remedies that include literacy reforms, interventions
and facility fixes.
Pugh’s letter came on the same day Mark Rosenbaum, the lead attorney
for the plaintiffs, blasted the state’s argument.
“She’s saying that the case is moot because there’s now a local board
of education, and therefore the state is off the hook,” said Rosenbaum,
referring to Whitmer. “You don’t have to be a legal scholar to know you
cannot commit constitutional violations and then turn over the reins to
someone else and say we’re not accountable.”
Meanwhile, another member of the eight-member state education board
said she wants “to explore all the options.”
“I don’t necessarily agree with the stance that has been taken now,”
said Tiffany Tilley, a Democrat from Southfield who was elected in
November. “I wasn’t given enough information about the lawsuit and what
was going to transpire.”
Pugh said in her letter that she is exploring her options after
contacting the Michigan Attorney General’s Office and notifying them
that she never agreed to support the state’s legal position. The filing
indicates it was the legal position of all defendants of the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2016 against former Gov. Rick
Snyder, as well as state education leaders, members of the state
education board and other state officials. It was updated in May to add
Whitmer and newly elected board members as defendants.
The lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III in
June of 2018. But the plaintiffs immediately filed an appeal, which is
now before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The students are represented by Public Counsel, which is based in Los
Angeles and the nation’s largest public interest law firm.
During the governor’s race in 2018, Whitmer said that despite Murphy’s
ruling, she believes every child has a right to literacy. A
spokesperson for her transition team reiterated that to Chalkbeat in
November.
Her election, and that of Attorney General Dana Nessel, had given some
hope that the state would stop fighting the lawsuit, and might instead
work with the plaintiffs to seek a settlement. The two sides did meet
in April for a mediation session that Rosenbaum said lasted about four
hours.
Tiffany Brown, a spokeswoman for Whitmer, said the governor has “only
signed onto” the part of the lawsuit that argues the state is no longer
a proper party to the lawsuit, and that the governor “believes that
every student deserves a quality public education.”
Rosenbaum said he’s confident in the plaintiff’s arguments. He said the
Detroit school district now has a strong superintendent and school
board. But the district’s has been adversely affected by years of state
control.
“The state decimated these schools,” he said.
The district last year produced a report that identified $500 million
worth of repairs needed at buildings districtwide — a price tag that
was expected to rise to $1.4 billion in five years if the district did
nothing. In February, Chalkbeat reported that the district planned to
spend $9.7 million to address some of the needs, but that amount was
just a fraction of what it would cost to fix the district’s crumbling
buildings.
Pugh, in her letter, noted that Michigan ranks among the worst states
in the nation for the performance of African-American students.
“Through decades of inequitable funding and disastrous education
program experiments, there’s been a perpetuation of children of color
being deprived of the basic and proven conditions necessary for them to
learn,” she wrote. “Classroom learning is thwarted without literacy.
Essential to a decent education are an adequate number of well trained
teachers, sufficient teaching resources, and school buildings that
aren’t environmental health hazards.”
Rosenbaum said he will have two to three weeks to file a reply to the
state motion. After that, he said, oral arguments will be scheduled
before the appeals court.
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