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 ...