Educating Diverse Democracies: A Portrait of the Legal Barriers to the Education of Immigrant Children

• In Event: Roundtable Session 36
  In Roundtable Session: Legal Justice and Students' Rights: Critically Examining Racial and Ethnic Equity in Education

Abstract

In the 1982 ruling of Plyler v. Doe the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that undocumented children cannot be denied a public education. Yet states across the U.S. have passed statutes preventing the education of these children and by practical extension documented children and their families. A package of Executive Actions by President Obama in November of 2014 modestly benefited and impacted the rights of undocumented immigrants, but did not challenge the state laws affecting school children and university students. We will review the national scene as it stands amidst confusion in the absence of meaningful immigration reform by the U.S. Congress and the puzzle of the states arbitrarily denying rights to immigrant children.

Author

• Chinasa Ada Elue, Kent State University - Kent