Education Law Commons^™

The Fundamental Right To Education, Derek W. Black

Notre Dame Law Review

New litigation has revived one of the most important questions of constitutional law: Is education a fundamental right? The Court’s previous answers have been disappointing. While the Court has hinted that it might recognize some minimal right to education, it has thus far refused to do so.

To recognize a fundamental right to education, the Court would have to overcome two basic problems. First, the Court needs an originalist theory for why our Constitution protects education, particularly since the word education does not even appear in the Constitution. Second, the right to education implicates complex questions regarding its scope. Those …