San Antonio v. Rodriguez - Supreme Court Upholds Property Tax School Funding, Entrenches Inequality

On March 21, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez that the Texas school finance system—which relied on local property taxes and created vast spending disparities between wealthy and poor districts—did not violate the Equal Protection Clause. The decision, written by Justice Lewis Powell, rejected education as a fundamental right and poverty as a suspect classification, permanently entrenching educational inequality as constitutionally permissible.

The case was brought by Demetrio Rodriguez and other parents in the Edgewood Independent School District, where the property tax base was so low that even high tax rates produced only $356 per pupil in state and local funds, while neighboring Alamo Heights—with its wealthy tax base—spent $594 per pupil. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) argued that this system discriminated against children based on the wealth of their neighborhoods, denying them equal educational opportunity.

Justice Powell’s majority opinion declined to find education a fundamental right, despite its acknowledged importance for civic participation and economic opportunity. Powell reasoned that because the Constitution does not explicitly mention education, it could not be considered fundamental. The decision also rejected wealth as a “suspect classification” deserving heightened judicial scrutiny, finding that poor districts were not a “definable class” and that the Texas system did not “absolutely deprive” anyone of education.

Justice Thurgood Marshall’s dissent was scathing, arguing that the majority’s reasoning “will not withstand analysis” and that the decision represented a “retreat from our historic commitment to equality of educational opportunity.” Marshall argued that the Court’s previous decisions had established education’s special constitutional status and that the property tax funding system created precisely the kind of discrimination the Equal Protection Clause was designed to prevent.

Rodriguez’s impact was devastating and enduring. By foreclosing federal constitutional challenges to school funding inequality, the decision ensured that American education would remain stratified by property wealth. Wealthy districts could maintain superior facilities, smaller class sizes, and better-paid teachers, while poor districts—disproportionately serving Black and Latino students—would struggle with inadequate resources. While some state courts later found their own constitutions required more equitable funding, Rodriguez eliminated the possibility of a national solution to educational inequality. The decision remains one of the Supreme Court’s most consequential in perpetuating structural inequality, ensuring that a child’s educational resources depend on the accident of where they are born.