# San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez > Supreme Court of the United States · April 23, 1973 · 411 U.S. 1 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425233 ## Case - **Full name:** SAN ANTONIO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT Et Al. v. RODRIGUEZ Et Al. - **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States - **Decided:** April 23, 1973 - **Citations:** 411 U.S. 1; 93 S. Ct. 1278; 36 L. Ed. 2d 16; 1973 U.S. LEXIS 91 - **Precedential status:** Published - **Opinion:** Dissent by Brennan - **Judges:** Maeshall, Powell, Burger, Stewart, Blackmun, Rehnquist, Brennan, White, Douglas, Marshall - **Cited by:** 3,154 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425233 ## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction) - concluding that a class comprising poor families exhibits none of the “traditional indicia of suspectness” because class is not “saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerle… - explaining that the key to discovering whether a particular right-in that case education-is "fundamental" is not to be found in comparisons of the relative societal significance of the right or weighing whether the right is as important as another right; the answer lies in ass… - concluding that class comprised of poor families exhibits none of "traditional indicia of suspectness" because class is "not saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessne… - stating, in its rational-basis review of a school-funding system, that “this case ... involves the most persistent and difficult questions of educational policy, another area in which this Court’s lack of specialized knowledge and experience counsels against premature interfer… - concluding that indigents receive heightened scrutiny where (1) "because of their impecunity they were completely unable to pay for some desired benefit," and (2) "as a consequence, they sustained an absolute deprivation of a meaningful opportunity to enjoy that benefit" ## Opinion text Mr. Justice Brennan, dissenting. Although I agree with my Brother White that the Texas statutory scheme is devoid of any rational basis, and for that reason is violative of the Equal Protection Clause, I also record my disagreement with the Court’s rather distressing assertion that a right may be deemed “fundamental” for the purposes of equal protection analysis only if it is “explicitly or implicitly guaranteed by the Constitution.” Ante, at 33-34. As my Brother Marshall convincingly demonstrates, our prior cases stand for the proposition that “fundamentality” is, in large measure, a function of the right’s importance in terms of the effectuation of those rights which are in fact constitutionally guaranteed. Thus, “[a]s the nexus between the specific constitutional guarantee and the non- *63 constitutional interest draws closer, the nonconstitutional interest becomes more fundamental and the degree of judicial scrutiny applied when the interest is infringed on a discriminatory basis must be adjusted accordingly.” Post, at 102-103. Here, there can be no doubt that education is inextricably linked to the right to participate in the electoral process and to the rights of free speech and association guaranteed by the First Amendment. See post, at 111— 115. This being so, any classification affecting education must be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny, and since even the State concedes that the statutory scheme now before us cannot pass constitutional muster under this stricter standard of review, I can only conclude that the Texas school-financing scheme is constitutionally invalid. --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9425233. Public record. Not legal advice.