“Whatever the severity of the impact of insufficient food or inadequate housing on a
person’s life, they have never been considered to bear the same direct and immediate relationship to
constitutional concerns for free speech and for our political processes as education has long been
recognized to bear. Perhaps, the best evidence of this fact is the unique status which has been
accorded public education as the single public service nearly unanimously guaranteed in the
constitutions of our States.”
–Justice Thurgood Marshall, dissenting in the federal
“Edgewood” case (Rodriguez, 1973).
Failure to win this crucial civil rights battle in
federal court sent strategists back to the state constitution of Texas.
As Marshall
hinted in the final footnote of his dissent: “Of course, nothing in the Court’s decision today should
inhibit further review of state educational funding schemes under state constitutional provisions.”
Read part one of the full dissent [through II.A.] below under “Read More.”
U.S. Supreme
Court
SAN ANTONIO SCHOOL DISTRICT v. RODRIGUEZ, 411 U.S. 1 (1973)
411 U.S. 1
[Source: Findlaw]
SAN ANTONIO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT ET AL. v. RODRIGUEZ ET
AL.,
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT
OF
TEXAS
No. 71-1332.
Argued October 12, 1972
Decided March 21,
1973
MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS concurs,
dissenting.
The Court today decides, in effect, that a State may constitutionally vary
the quality of education which it offers its children in accordance with the amount of taxable wealth
located in the school districts within which they reside. The majority’s decision represents an abrupt
departure from the mainstream of recent state and federal court decisions concerning the
unconstitutionality of state educational financing schemes dependent upon taxable local wealth. 1 More
unfortunately, though, the [411 U.S. 1, 71] majority’s holding can only be seen as a retreat from
our historic commitment to equality of educational opportunity and as unsupportable acquiescence in a
system which deprives children in their earliest years of the chance to reach their full potential as
citizens. The Court does this despite the absence of any substantial justification for a scheme which
arbitrarily channels educational resources in accordance with the fortuity of the amount of taxable
wealth within each district.
In my judgment, the right of every American to an equal
start in life, so far as the provision of a state service as important as education is concerned, is
far too vital to permit state discrimination on grounds as tenuous as those presented by this record.
Nor can I accept the notion that it is sufficient to remit these appellees to the vagaries of the
political process which, contrary to the majority’s suggestion, has proved singularly unsuited to the
task of providing a remedy for this discrimination. 2 I, for one, am unsatisfied with the hope of an
ultimate “political” solution sometime in the indefinite future while, in the meantime, countless
children unjustifiably receive inferior educations that “may affect their hearts [411 U.S. 1, 72]
and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 494 (1954).
I must therefore respectfully dissent.
I
The Court acknowledges that
“substantial interdistrict disparities in school expenditures” exist in Texas, ante, at 15, and that
these disparities are “largely attributable to differences in the amounts of money collected through
local property taxation,” ante, at 16. But instead of closely examining the seriousness of these
disparities and the invidiousness of the Texas financing scheme, the Court undertakes an elaborate
exploration of the efforts Texas has purportedly made to close the gaps between its districts in terms
of levels of district wealth and resulting educational funding. Yet, however praiseworthy Texas’
equalizing efforts, the issue in this case is not whether Texas is doing its best to ameliorate the
worst features of a discriminatory scheme but, rather, whether the scheme itself is in fact
unconstitutionally discriminatory in the face of the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal
protection of the laws. When the Texas financing scheme is taken as a whole, I do not think it can be
doubted that it produces a discriminatory impact on substantial numbers of the school-age children of
the State of Texas.
A
Funds to support public education in Texas are
derived from three sources: local ad valorem property taxes; the Federal Government; and the state
government. 3 It is enlightening to consider these in order. [411 U.S. 1, 73]
Under
Texas law, the only mechanism provided the local school district for raising new, unencumbered revenues
is the power to tax property located within its boundaries. 4 At the same time, the Texas financing
scheme effectively restricts the use of monies raised by local property taxation to the support of
public education within the boundaries of the district in which they are raised, since any such taxes
must be approved by a majority of the property-taxpaying voters of the district. 5
The
significance of the local property tax element of the Texas financing scheme is apparent from the fact
that it provides the funds to meet some 40% of the cost of public education for Texas as a whole. 6 Yet
the amount of revenue that any particular Texas district can raise is dependent on two factors – its
tax rate and its amount of taxable property. The first factor is determined by the property-taxpaying
voters of the district. 7 But, regardless of the enthusiasm of the local voters for public [411 U.S. 1,
74] education, the second factor – the taxable property wealth of the district – necessarily
restricts the district’s ability to raise funds to support public education. 8 Thus, even though the
voters of two Texas districts may be willing to make the same tax effort, the results for the districts
will be substantially different if one is property rich while the other is property poor. The necessary
effect of the Texas local property tax is, in short, to favor property-rich districts and to disfavor
property-poor ones.
The seriously disparate consequences of the Texas local property tax,
when that tax is considered alone, are amply illustrated by data presented to the District Court by
appellees. These data included a detailed study of a sample of 110 Texas school districts 9 for the
1967-1968 school year conducted by Professor Joel S. Berke of Syracuse University’s Educational
Finance Policy Institute. Among other things, this study revealed that the 10 richest districts
examined, each of which had more than $100,000 in taxable property per pupil, raised through local
effort an average of $610 per pupil, whereas the four poorest districts studied, each of which had less
than $10,000 in taxable property per pupil, were able [411 U.S. 1, 75] to raise only an average of
$63 per pupil. 10 And, as the Court effectively recognizes, ante, at 27, this correlation between the
amount of taxable property per pupil and the amount of local revenues per pupil holds true for the 96
districts in between the richest and poorest districts. 11
It is clear, moreover, that
the disparity of per-pupil revenues cannot be dismissed as the result of lack of local effort – that
is, lower tax rates – by property-poor districts. To the contrary, the data presented below indicate
that the poorest districts tend to have the highest tax rates and the richest districts tend to have
the lowest tax rates. 12 Yet, despite the apparent extra effort being made by the poorest districts,
they are unable even to begin to match the richest districts in te
rms of the product
ion of local
revenues. For example, the 10 richest districts studied by Professor Berke were able to produce $585
per pupil with an equalized tax rate of 31› [411 U.S. 1, 76] on $100 of equalized valuation, but the
four poorest districts studied, with an equalized rate of 70› on $100 of equalized valuation, were able
to produce only $60 per pupil. 13 Without more, this state-imposed system of educational funding
presents a serious picture of widely varying treatment of Texas school districts, and thereby of Texas
schoolchildren, in terms of the amount of funds available for public education.
Nor are
these funding variations corrected by the other aspects of the Texas financing scheme. The Federal
Government provides funds sufficient to cover only some 10% of the total cost of public education in
Texas. 14 Furthermore, while these federal funds are not distributed in Texas solely on a per-pupil
basis, appellants do not here contend that they are used in such a way as to ameliorate significantly
the widely varying consequences for Texas school districts and schoolchildren of the local property tax
element of the state financing scheme. 15
State funds provide the remaining some 50% of
the monies spent on public education in Texas. 16 Technically, they are distributed under two programs.
The first is the Available School Fund, for which provision is made in the Texas Constitution. 17 The
Available [411 U.S. 1, 77] School Fund is composed of revenues obtained from a number of sources,
including receipts from the state ad valorem property tax, one-fourth of all monies collected by the
occupation tax, annual contributions by the legislature from general revenues, and the revenues derived
from the Permanent School Fund. 18 For the 1970-1971 school year the Available School Fund contained
$296,000,000. The Texas Constitution requires that this money be distributed annually on a per capita
basis 19 to the local school districts. Obviously, such a flat grant could not alone eradicate the
funding differentials attributable to the local property tax. Moreover, today the Available School Fund
is in reality simply one facet of the second state financing program, the Minimum Foundation School
Program, 20 since each district’s annual share of the Fund is deducted from the sum to which the
district is entitled under the Foundation Program. 21
The Minimum Foundation School
Program provides funds for three specific purposes: professional salaries, current operating expenses,
and transportation expenses. 22 The State pays, on an overall basis, for approximately 80% of the cost
of the Program; the remaining 20% is distributed among the local school districts under the [411 U.S.
1, 78] Local Fund Assignment. 23 Each district’s share of the Local Fund Assignment is determined by
a complex “economic index” which is designed to allocate a larger share of the costs to property-rich
districts than to property-poor districts. 24 Each district pays its share with revenues derived from
local property taxation.
The stated purpose of the Minimum Foundation School Program is
to provide certain basic funding for each local Texas school district. 25 At the same time, the Program
was apparently intended to improve, to some degree, the financial position of property-poor districts
relative to property-rich districts, since – through the use of the economic index – an effort is made
to charge a disproportionate share of the costs of the Program to rich districts. 26 It bears noting,
however, that substantial criticism has been leveled at the practical effectiveness of the economic
index system of local cost allocation. 27 In theory, the index is designed to ascertain the relative
ability of each district to contribute to the Local Fund Assignment from local property taxes. Yet the
index is not developed simply on the basis of each district’s taxable wealth. It also takes into
account the district’s relative income from manufacturing, mining, and agriculture, its payrolls, and
its scholastic population. 28 [411 U.S. 1, 79] It is difficult to discern precisely how these
latter factors are predictive of a district’s relative ability to raise revenues through local
property taxes. Thus, in 1966, one of the consultants who originally participated in the development of
the Texas economic index adopted in 1949 told the Governor’s Committee on Public School Education:
“The Economic Index approach to evaluating local ability offers a little better measure than sheer
chance, but not much.” 29
Moreover, even putting aside these criticisms of the
economic index as a device for achieving meaningful district wealth equalization through cost
allocation, poor districts still do not necessarily receive more state aid than property-rich
districts. For the standards which currently determine the amount received from the Foundation School
Program by any particular district 30 favor property-rich districts. 31 Thus, focusing on the same [411
U.S. 1, 80] Edgewood Independent and Alamo Heights School Districts which the majority uses for
purposes of illustration, we find that in 1967-1968 property-rich Alamo Heights, 32 which raised $333
per pupil on an equalized tax rate of 85› per $100 valuation, received $225 per pupil from the
Foundation School Program, while property-poor Edgewood, 33 which raised only $26 per pupil with an
equalized tax rate of $1.05 per $100 valuation, received only $222 per pupil from the Foundation School
Program. 34 And, more recent data, which indicate that for the 1970-1971 school year Alamo Heights
received $491 per pupil from [411 U.S. 1, 81] the Program while Edgewood received only $356 per
pupil, hardly suggest that the wealth gap between the districts is being narrowed by the State Program.
To the contrary, whereas in 1967-1968 Alamo Heights received only $3 per pupil, or about 1%, more than
Edgewood in state aid, by 1970-1971 the gap had widened to a difference of $135 per pupil, or about
38%. 35 It was data of this character that prompted the District Court to observe that “the current
[state aid] system tends to subsidize the rich at the expense of the poor, rather than the other way
around.” 36 337 F. Supp. 280, 282. And even the appellants go no further here than to venture that the
Minimum Foundation School Program has “a mildly equalizing effect.” 37
Despite these
facts, the majority continually emphasizes how much state aid has, in recent years, been given [411
U.S. 1, 82] to property-poor Texas school districts. What the Court fails to emphasize is the cruel
irony of how much more state aid is being given to property-rich Texas school districts on top of their
already substantial local property tax revenues. 38 Under any view, then, it is apparent that the state
aid provided by the Foundation School Program fails to compensate for the large funding variations
attributable to the local property tax element of the Texas financing scheme. And it is these stark
differences in the treatment of Texas school districts and school children inherent in the Texas
financing scheme, not the absolute amount of state aid provided to any particular school district, that
are the crux of this case. There can, moreover, be no escaping the conclusion that the local property
tax which is dependent upon taxable district property wealth is an essential feature of the Texas
scheme for financing public education. 39
B
The appellants do not deny
the disparities in educational funding caused by variations in taxable district property wealth. They
do contend, however, that whatever the differences in per-pupil spending among Texas districts, there
are no discriminatory consequences for the children of the disadvantaged districts. They recognize that
what is at stake in this case is the quality of the [411 U.S. 1, 83] public education provided Texas
children in the districts in which they live. But appellants reject the suggestio
n that the quality of
education in any particular district is determined by money – beyond some minimal level of funding
which they believe to be assured every Texas district by the Minimum Foundation School Program. In
their view, there is simply no denial of equal educational opportunity to any Texas schoolchildren as a
result of the widely varying per-pupil spending power provided districts under the current financing
scheme.
In my view, though, even an unadorned restatement of this contention is
sufficient to reveal its absurdity. Authorities concerned with educational quality no doubt disagree as
to the significance of variations in per-pupil spending. 40 Indeed, conflicting expert testimony was
presented to the District Court in this case concerning the effect of spending variations on
educational achievement. 41 We sit, however, not to resolve disputes over educational theory but to
enforce our Constitution. It is an inescapable fact that if one district has more funds available per
pupil than another district, the [411 U.S. 1, 84] former will have greater choice in educational
planning than will the latter. In this regard, I believe the question of discrimination in educational
quality must be deemed to be an objective one that looks to what the State provides its children, not
to what the children are able to do with what they receive. That a child forced to attend an
underfunded school with poorer physical facilities, less experienced teachers, larger classes, and a
narrower range of courses than a school with substantially more funds – and thus with greater choice in
educational planning – may nevertheless excel is to the credit of the child, not the State, cf.
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337, 349 (1938). Indeed, who can ever measure for such a
child the opportunities lost and the talents wasted for want of a broader, more enriched education?
Discrimination in the opportunity to learn that is afforded a child must be our
standard.
Hence, even before this Court recognized its duty to tear down the barriers of
state-enforced racial segregation in public education, it acknowledged that inequality in the
educational facilities provided to students may be discriminatory state action as contemplated by the
Equal Protection Clause. As a basis for striking down state-enforced segregation of a law school, the
Court in Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, 633 -634 (1950), stated:
“[W]e cannot find
substantial equality in the educational opportunities offered white and Negro law students by the
State. In terms of number of the faculty, variety of courses and opportunity for specialization, size
of the student body, scope of the library, availability of law review and similar activities, the
[whites-only] Law School is superior. . . . It is difficult to believe that one who had a free choice
between these law schools would consider the question close.” [411 U.S. 1, 85]
See
also McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, 339 U.S. 637 (1950). Likewise, it is
difficult to believe that if the children of Texas had a free choice, they would choose to be educated
in districts with fewer resources, and hence with more antiquated plants, less experienced teachers,
and a less diversified curriculum. In fact, if financing variations are so insignificant to educational
quality, it is difficult to understand why a number of our country’s wealthiest school districts,
which have no legal obligation to argue in support of the constitutionality of the Texas legislation,
have nevertheless zealously pursued its cause before this Court. 42
The consequences,
in terms of objective educational input, of the variations in district funding caused by the Texas
financing scheme are apparent from the data introduced before the District Court. For example, in 1968
-1969, 100% of the teachers in the property-rich Alamo Heights School District had college degrees. 43
By contrast, during the same school year only 80.02% of the teachers had college degrees in the
property poor Edgewood Independent School District. 44 Also, in 1968-1969, approximately 47% of the
teachers in the Edgewood District were on emergency teaching permits, whereas only 11% of the teachers
in Alamo Heights were on such permits. 45 This is undoubtedly a reflection of the fact that the top of
Edgewood’s teacher salary scale was [411 U.S. 1, 86] approximately 80% of Alamo Heights’. 46 And,
not surprisingly, the teacher-student ratio varies significantly between the two districts. 47 In other
words, as might be expected, a difference in the funds available to districts results in a difference
in educational inputs available for a child’s public education in Texas. For constitutional purposes,
I believe this situation, which is directly attributable to the Texas financing scheme, raises a grave
question of state-created discrimination in the provision of public education. Cf. Gaston County v.
United States, 395 U.S. 285, 293 -294 (1969).
At the very least, in view of the
substantial interdistrict disparities in funding and in resulting educational inputs shown by appellees
to exist under the Texas financing scheme, the burden of proving that these disparities do not in fact
affect the quality of children’s education must fall upon the appellants. Cf. Hobson v. Hansen, 327 F.
Supp. 844, 860-861 (DC 1971). Yet appellants made no effort in the District Court to demonstrate that
educational quality is not affected by variations in funding and in resulting inputs. And, in this
Court, they have argued no more than that the relationship is ambiguous. This is hardly sufficient to
overcome appellees’ prima facie showing of state-created discrimination between the schoolchildren of
Texas with respect to objective educational opportunity.
Nor can I accept the
appellants’ apparent suggestion that the Texas Minimum Foundation School Program effectively
eradicates any discriminatory effects otherwise resulting from the local property tax element of the
[411 U.S. 1, 87] Texas financing scheme. Appellants assert that, despite its imperfections, the
Program “does guarantee an adequate education to every child.” 48 The majority, in considering the
constitutionality of the Texas financing scheme, seems to find substantial merit in this contention,
for it tells us that the Foundation Program “was designed to provide an adequate minimum educational
offering in every school in the State,” ante, at 45, and that the Program “assur[es] a basic
education for every child,” ante, at 49. But I fail to understand how the constitutional problems
inherent in the financing scheme are eased by the Foundation Program. Indeed, the precise thrust of the
appellants’ and the Court’s remarks are not altogether clear to me.
The suggestion may
be that the state aid received via the Foundation Program sufficiently improves the position of
property-poor districts vis-a-vis property-rich districts – in terms of educational funds – to
eliminate any claim of interdistrict discrimination in available educational resources which might
otherwise exist if educational funding were dependent solely upon local property taxation. Certainly
the Court has recognized that to demand precise equality of treatment is normally unrealistic, and thus
minor differences inherent in any practical context usually will not make out a substantial equal
protection claim. See, e. g., Mayer v. City of Chicago, 404 U.S. 189, 194 -195 (1971); Draper v.
Washington, 372 U.S. 487, 495 -496 (1963); Bain Peanut Co. v. Pinson, 282 U.S. 499, 501 (1931). But, as
has already been seen, we are hardly presented here with some de minimis claim of discrimination
resulting from the play necessary in any functioning system; to the contrary, it is clear that the
Foundation Program utterly fails to [411 U.S. 1, 88] ameliorate the seriously discriminatory effects
of the local property tax. 49
Alternatively, the appellants a
nd the majority may
believe that the Equal Protection Clause cannot be offended by substantially unequal state treatment of
persons who are similarly situated so long as the State provides everyone with some unspecified amount
of education which evidently is “enough.” 50 The basis for such a novel view is far from clear. It
is, of course, true that the Constitution does not require precise equality in the treatment of all
persons. As Mr. Justice Frankfurter explained:
“The equality at which the `equal
protection’ clause aims is not a disembodied equality. The Fourteenth Amendment enjoins `the equal
protection of the laws,’ and laws are not abstract propositions. . . . The Constitution does not
require things which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were the
same.” Tigner v. Texas, 310 U.S. 141, 147 (1940).
See also Douglas v. California, 372
U.S. 353, 357 (1963); Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464, 466 (1948). [411 U.S. 1, 89] But this Court
has never suggested that because some “adequate” level of benefits is provided to all, discrimination
in the provision of services is therefore constitutionally excusable. The Equal Protection Clause is
not addressed to the minimal sufficiency but rather to the unjustifiable inequalities of state action.
It mandates nothing less than that “all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike.” F.
S. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415 (1920).
Even if the Equal Protection
Clause encompassed some theory of constitutional adequacy, discrimination in the provision of
educational opportunity would certainly seem to be a poor candidate for its application. Neither the
majority nor appellants inform us how judicially manageable standards are to be derived for determining
how much education is “enough” to excuse constitutional discrimination. One would think that the
majority would heed its own fervent affirmation of judicial self-restraint before undertaking the
complex task of determining at large what level of education is constitutionally sufficient. Indeed,
the majority’s apparent reliance upon the adequacy of the educational opportunity assured by the Texas
Minimum Foundation School Program seems fundamentally inconsistent with its own recognition that
educational authorities are unable to agree upon what makes for educational quality, see ante, at 42-43
and n. 86 and at 47 n. 101. If, as the majority stresses, such authorities are uncertain as to the
impact of various levels of funding on educational quality, I fail to see where it finds the expertise
to divine that the particular levels of funding provided by the Program assure an adequate educational
opportunity – much less an education substantially equivalent in quality to that which a higher level
of funding might provide. Certainly appellants’ mere assertion before this Court of the adequacy of
the education guaranteed by the Minimum [411 U.S. 1, 90] Foundation School Program cannot obscure the
constitutional implications of the discrimination in educational funding and objective educational
inputs resulting from the local property tax – particularly since the appellees offered substantial
uncontroverted evidence before the District Court impugning the now much-touted “adequacy” of the
education guaranteed by the Foundation Program. 51
In my view, then, it is inequality –
not some notion of gross inadequacy – of educational opportunity that raises a question of denial of
equal protection of the laws. I find any other approach to the issue unintelligible and without
directing principle. Here, appellees have made a substantial showing of wide variations in educational
funding and the resulting educational opportunity afforded to the schoolchildren of Texas. This
discrimination is, in large measure, attributable to significant disparities in the taxable wealth of
local Texas school districts. This is a sufficient showing to raise a substantial question of
discriminatory state action in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. 52 [411 U.S. 1, 91]
C
Despite the evident discriminatory effect of the Texas financing scheme,
both the appellants and the majority raise substantial questions concerning the precise character of
the disadvantaged class in this case. The District Court concluded that the Texas financing scheme
draws “distinction between groups of citizens depending upon the wealth of the district in which they
live” and thus creates a disadvantaged class composed of persons living in property-poor districts.
See 337 F. Supp., at 282. See also id., at 281. In light of the data introduced before the District
Court, the conclusion that the schoolchildren of property-poor districts constitute a sufficient class
for our purposes seems indisputable to me.
Appellants contend, however, that in
constitutional terms this case involves nothing more than discrimination against local school
districts, not against individuals, since on its face the state scheme is concerned only with the
provision of funds to local districts. The result of the Texas financing scheme, appellants suggest, is
merely that some local districts have more available revenues for education; others have less. In that
respect, [411 U.S. 1, 92] they point out, the States have broad discretion in drawing reasonable
distinctions between their political subdivisions. See Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward
County, 377 U.S. 218, 231 (1964); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 427 (1961); Salsburg v. Maryland,
346 U.S. 545, 550 -554 (1954).
But this Court has consistently recognized that where
there is in fact discrimination against individual interests, the constitutional guarantee of equal
protection of the laws is not inapplicable simply because the discrimination is based upon some group
characteristic such as geographic location. See Gordon v. Lance, 403 U.S. 1, 4 (1971); Reynolds v.
Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 565 -566 (1964); Gray v. Sanders 372 U.S. 368, 379 (1963). Texas has chosen to
provide free public education for all its citizens, and it has embodied that decision in its
constitution. 53 Yet, having established public education for its citizens, the State, as a direct
consequence of the variations in local property wealth endemic to Texas’ financing scheme, has
provided some Texas schoolchildren with substantially less resources for their education than others.
Thus, while on its face the Texas scheme may merely discriminate between local districts, the impact of
that discrimination falls directly upon the children whose educational opportunity is dependent upon
where they happen to live. Consequently, the District Court correctly concluded that the Texas
financing scheme discriminates, from a constitutional perspective, between schoolchildren on the basis
of the amount of taxable property located within their local districts.
In my Brother
STEWART’S view, however, such a description of the discrimination inherent in this case is apparently
not sufficient, for it fails to define the “kind of objectively identifiable classes” that he
evidently perceives [411 U.S. 1, 93] to be necessary for a claim to be “cognizable under the Equal
Protection Clause,” ante, at 62. He asserts that this is also the view of the majority, but he is
unable to cite, nor have I been able to find, any portion of the Court’s opinion which remotely
suggests that there is no objectively identifiable or definable class in this case. In any event, if he
means to suggest that an essential predicate to equal protection analysis is the precise identification
of the particular individuals who compose the disadvantaged class, I fail to find the source from which
he derives such a requirement. Certainly such precision is not analytically necessary. So long as the
basis of the discrimination is clearly identified, it is possible to test it against the State’s
purpose for such discrimination – whatever the standard of
equal protection analysis empl
Texas Civil Rights Review 