Using San Antonio v. Rodriguez to Explore Racial Silences Within School Finance Policy

• In Event: Politics of Diversity and the Future of Desegregation

Abstract

School finance as a policy issue gained national prominence with the San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez case, which was first filed in 1968. The purpose of this paper was to examine the inclusion and exclusion of race in the Rodriguez lawsuit to identify “areas of silence” in school finance discourse in order to understand how current definitions of school finance problems continue to ignore race. Historic methods, guided by a Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) framework, were employed to analyze archival records, newspaper articles, and legal documents. This analysis revealed themes of the language used in the courts cases, the shifts in legal argumentation and evidence, and the lasting implications of the final court ruling.

Author

• Erin Atwood, Texas Tech University