Detroit children blast governor over ‘blaming students’ for failing schools

Lawyers representing a group of Detroit children who have a filed federal lawsuit against Gov. Rick Snyder over deplorable conditions in city schools lashed out at the governor in a court motion filed Thursday.

The lawsuit — which legal experts say could have sweeping impact on struggling school systems around the country — alleges that the kids’ Constitutional right to literacy has been violated by their ineffective schools, which from suffer teacher shortages, lack of books, non-working toilets, vermin and buildings in poor repair. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in September.

Snyder responded in November that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a right to literacy and urged a federal judge to dismiss the suit.

Lawyers for the children responded Thursday that Snyder and other state officials named in the suit were seeking to “evade responsibility by any means possible.”  

“Perhaps most troubling,” they wrote in their court filing, was Snyder’s “attempt to blame the students and their parents for the students’ lack of proficiency, citing supposed “intellectual limitations,” lack of “parental involvement,” and “domestic violence,” contending that Plaintiffs lack standing.”

“Not only does this claim fuel the offensive stereotype that these students are uninterested in and incapable of learning,” the motion asserted, “ but the suggestion that the State may renege on its constitutional obligation to provide access to literacy because it assumes some students may benefit less than others is offensive to constitutional values.”

The motion came the same day that another, unrelated, lawsuit about the state of Detroit schools reached a settlement. The American Federation of Teachers union announced Thursday that it had come to terms with Detroit’s main school district in a lawsuit that was filed early last year over poor school conditions that had led teachers to to walk out of their schools in mass “sick out” protests last year.

The lawsuit had been filed when the district was under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager but was settled by the new Detroit school board, which was officially sworn in Wednesday night. The settlement calls, in part, for the creation of a new committee charged with ensuring that all building repair requests are handled promptly.

The full motion in the federal case is available here:

Gary B v Snyder — Response to Motion to Dismiss