Cook V. Raimondo Articles

This is what it all comes down to: we may choose to survive as a country by respecting our Constitution, the laws and norms of political and civic behavior, and by educating our children on civics, the rule of law, and what it really means to be an American, and what America means. Or, we may ignore these things at our and their peril.

While Judge William E. Smith ruled in favor of the education commissioner and the board, among other state leaders, he said the case “highlights a deep flaw in our national education priorities and policies” and hoped “others who have the power to address this need will respond appropriately.”

The Judge also added that “while this lawsuit must be dismissed, it is worth pausing, before explaining why, to acknowledge the importance of Plaintiffs’ effort here. This case does not represent a wild-eyed effort to expand the reach of substantive due process, but rather a cry for help from a generation of young people who are destined to inherit a country which we — the generation currently in charge — are not stewarding well.

The latest decision in the Rhode Island case left open "a legal road to appeal" that plaintiff attorney Michael Rebell said has the potential to end at the steps of the Supreme Court, decades after justices in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez decided education was not a constitutional right.

The U.S. Supreme Court has previously rejected arguments in favor of a constitutional right to an education, an immovable legal impediment that led some to believe the plaintiffs’ cause hopeless. In April, however, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals found in favor of a right to “a basic minimum education,” which had putatively been violated by the shoddy education offered in Detroit schools.

The lawsuit, Cook v. Raimondo, asserts that failing to provide public school students with an adequate civics education violates their constitutional rights, because students do not have the education necessary to exercise their rights to free speech, serve on a jury, and “participate effectively in civic activities.”

During the time leading up to the lawsuit, Cook told me that while she didn't know much about voting and taxes, she had been learning about organizing and activism through participating in student groups like Providence Student Union, PrYSM (that's Providence Youth Student Movement) for Justice and Love, ARISE (Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education) Youth Leaders among others.

Cook, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, Cook v. Raimondo, said: “It is a big honor for our activism to be recognized by the New England First Amendment Coalition. We are working very hard to make positive changes in our schools and community and to have our constitutional rights enforced. We feel like this recognition will help us take our advocacy work to the next level. We are thankful and excited about this honor.”

If they win, the case could go down in history as the Brown v. Board of Education for their generation. It goes to the heart of the relationship between education and the success of the American experiment. Like other fights over educational fairness, the plaintiffs root it in the struggle for civil rights and the nation’s long reach toward ideals of equal opportunity and participatory democracy.

“Educational institutions don’t make students stronger by preventing them from speaking their minds freely,” said Yanine Castedo, 16, of Central Falls. “They make students stronger by embracing the voices of young people and supporting their right to free speech.”

"They don't mandate civics courses as they do in other states, they don't teach media literacy, which was one of the points the judge was really emphasizing. They don't require teachers to get professional development in this area."

A federal judge will hear oral arguments Thursday in the latest case saying education is a right under the U.S. Constitution — litigation with the potential to have an “electric effect” on public schools, experts say.

Although the Court held there that there is no right to equity in school funding under the federal constitution, the Court left for another day the issue of whether there may be a right to basic level of education needed for capable citizenship under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

“Our school system in America is just inherently failing so many students because it’s not giving students the information they need to actively contribute to making changes in this country,” he said Thursday during a press conference in Providence about the lawsuit.

Nearly all of the world’s 180-plus countries include the term education in their constitution. Most guarantee every child the right to free education, and many make participation in some form of schooling mandatory; some even provide universal access to affordable college.

The state allows local school districts to decide for themselves whether and how to teach civics, and the lawsuit says that leads to big discrepancies. Students in affluent towns often have access to a rich curriculum and a range of extracurricular activities, like debate teams and field trips to the State Legislature, that are beyond the reach of poorer schools.