Aliens in School

Court upholds their rights

For years, illegal Mexican immigrants have provided a pool of cheap labor in and around Tyler, Texas (pop. 70,500). They have also sent their children free to the local public schools. But in 1977 these parents got some bad news: their children could attend school only if they paid $1,000 annual tuition. Texas had passed a law cutting off the state's share of the costs of educating such children. Some of the parents, although leery of drawing governmental attention to their unlawful presence, asked the federal courts to intervene. Last week, expressing skepticism about any law "directing the onus of a parent's misconduct against his children," the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that the Texas statute was unconstitutional.

The state had argued that the students were a financial burden and that free education encouraged Mexicans to cross the border illegally. But the court held that Texas' interests were not "substantial" enough to outweigh unequal treatment. Citing "the importance of education in maintaining our basic institutions," Justice William Brennan said that Texas seemed to be promoting "a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare and crime."

In dissent, Chief Justice Warren Burger hammered away on a major theme of the current high court: deference to legislators. While conceding that the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law applies even to those illegally in the country (a seeming paradox to many laymen), Burger accused the majority of misusing that safeguard. "The Constitution," he said, "does not provide a cure for every social ill, nor does it vest judges with a mandate to try to remedy every social problem."

The ruling's immediate impact will be minimal. Although it once claimed otherwise, Texas now admits that it can easily afford to educate the 20,000 to 30,000 students who would have been excluded--about 1% of the school-age population. Moreover, few districts outside Texas have tried to discriminate against such children. Critics fear that the ruling will enable illegal aliens to obtain benefits like Medicaid and welfare, but that will probably not occur. In view of the close court vote and the narrowness of the majority analysis, any significant extension of last week's decision would be a surprise.

Other decisions last week:

> In recent years the traditional freedom from federal antitrust laws enjoyed by the "learned professions" has started to erode, with the court striking down anticompetitive pricing practices of lawyers and engineers. Last week it was the doctors' turn. The court ruled that a fee schedule adopted by some Arizona physicians violated the Sherman Act even though it set only maximums. Wrote Justice John Paul Stevens: "It may be a masquerade for an agreement to fix uniform prices, or it may in the future take on that character." Since two court members did not take part, the 4-to-3 decision raises some doubts about similar rulings in future cases. Still, the prognosis was for minor relief from painful health-care costs.

> For the first time, the court ruled that mentally retarded patients who have been committed to state institutions without their consent have a constitutional right to safety and freedom of movement plus training to help them enjoy these rights. The unanimous decision, stemming from a case brought by the mother of an occasionally violent patient in Pennsylvania's Pennhurst State School and Hospital, stressed that the rights are not "absolute" and must be balanced against factors like the protection of other patients. Who should do the balancing? A psychiatrist or other "qualified professional," wrote Justice Lewis Powell. Since doctors already generally decide such matters, the actual change in patients' status may be slight.

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