BAACH KAUFMANN MIDDLEMISS PLLC, Washington, D.C., Michael J. Dell, KRAMER
LEVIN NAFTALIS & FRANKEL LLP, New York, New York, Scott Burnett Smith, Julian D.
Miller, BRADLEY ARANT BOULT CUMMINGS LLP, Huntsville, Alabama, Lena Konanova,
David S. Flugman, Jessica Underwood, Bria Delaney, Nicholas J. Klenow, SELENDY & GAY
PLLC, New York, New York, Jenice C. Mitchell, DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS
COMMUNITY DISTRICT, Detroit, Michigan, Daniel S. Korobkin, Michael J. Steinberg,
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FUND OF MICHIGAN, Detroit, Michigan, Jerome
D. Goldberg, Detroit, Michigan, for Amici Curiae.
CLAY, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which STRANCH, J., joined. MURPHY,
J. (pp. 62–85), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.
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OPINION
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CLAY, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs in this appeal are students at several of Detroit’s worst-
performing public schools. They credit this substandard performance to poor conditions within
their classrooms, including missing or unqualified teachers, physically dangerous facilities, and
inadequate books and materials. Taken together, Plaintiffs say these conditions deprive them of
a basic minimum education, meaning one that provides a chance at foundational literacy.
In 2016, Plaintiffs sued several Michigan state officials, who they say are responsible for
these abysmal conditions in their schools. Plaintiffs allege that state actors are responsible, as
opposed to local entities, based on the state’s general supervision of all public education, and
also on the state’s specific interventions in Detroit’s public schools. The state argues that it
recently returned control to local officials, and so it is now the wrong party to sue.
Plaintiffs’ underlying claims, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, are all based on the Due
Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plaintiffs argue that while
other Michigan students receive an adequate education, the students in Plaintiffs’ schools do not,
amounting to a violation of their right to equal protection of the laws. They also argue that the
schools they are forced to attend are schools in name only, and so the state cannot justify the
restriction on their liberty imposed by compulsory attendance. And in their most significant
claim, Plaintiffs ask this Court to recognize a fundamental right to a basic minimum education,
an issue the Supreme Court has repeatedly discussed but never decided.