an interesting (and ironic) problem

posted by curt, on October 4, 2007 02:53 pm

So, in Public Education Law today, we learned that the US Supreme Court had held, in Plyer v. Doe, that a state could not refuse to provide an education to the children of illegal immigrants. The rationale, as aptly stated by our teacher, is that a state cannot punish the children for the sins of their parents, and the children are "persons" within the coverage of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Later on in our class, one student in our class raised the concern that the punishment for parents not allowing their children to attend school was too harsh, especially in the case of migrant parents who need their children to work in the fields. If that view is adopted, it creates an interesting situation for the government. One the one hand, they cannot refuse to provide an education to the children of illegal immigrants, but, on the other, they are to be constrained in their ability to enforce the duty imposed on them by the Constitution.

While I'm not quite sure about how I come down on Plyer v. Doe, I am pretty certain that governments should be able to impose harsh penalties on parents who prevent their children from attending school (or are complicit in their child's refusal to attend school). It's an unfortunate fact that, if the penalties are lessened, there are many parents out there who will let their kids avoid school, and the impact on those kids will be tragic.

Any thoughts? Something related to this might be a good paper topic for me. What do you think?

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