In the first federal court case to tackle the issue, the U.S. District Court of Michigan (Eastern District) ruled that access to literacy is not a “fundamental right” of all U.S. Citizens in Gary B. v. Snyder, et. al. The 14th Amendment case, which stemmed from a complaint filed by minor children who attended a Detroit Public School, argued that the condition of the public school was so poor and inadequate that the students were deprived of a minimally adequate education. While the court agreed that, “education is certainly a vitally important governmental function, it is not a fundamental individual right for equal protection purposes…” because to do would require, “a finding that neither liberty nor justice would exist absent state-provided literacy access.”
July 2018
