The full Sixth Circuit will consider whether basic education is a fundamental right after the court vacated a panel ruling in a case in which students challenged learning conditions in Detroit public schools.
A split three-judge panel had found in the suit against Michigan officials that access to literacy is a right. The suit alleged poor classroom conditions are to blame for substandard academic performance in several of the city’s worst-performing public schools.
The panel, in its April 23 ruling, reinstated the students’ claims that the right to education is protected by the U.S. Constitution’s due process clause.
The decision...