Ata boy Judge!
When I was in college we had a name for tenured professors. “Retired.” They mostly showed up for their classes but left everything else to graduate students.
Well, this is one little scrap of good news for the moment.
I’m curious - from a conservative viewpoint, is there any positive aspect of giving a teacher tenure?
More specifically, the Equal Protections Clause (EPC) in California’s constitution is expressly based on the EPC of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment.
“SEC. 7. (a) A person may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or denied equal protection of the laws; provided, that nothing contained herein or elsewhere in this Constitution imposes upon the State of California or any public entity, board, or official any obligations or responsibilities which exceed those imposed by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution [emphasis added] with respect to the use of pupil school assignment or pupil transportation.” — Article I, California Constitution .
The problem with vote-winning, PC interpretations of the 14th Amendment’s EPC is the following. Regardless that institutionally indoctrinated justices and judges are finding new rights in the EPC all the time, the Supreme Court had historically clarified that 14A added no new rights to the Constitution, that it just strengthened enumerated rights.
“3. The right of suffrage was not necessarily one of the privileges or immunities of citizenship before the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that amendment does not add to these privileges and immunities. It simply furnishes additional guaranty for the protection of such as the citizen already had [emphasis added].” —Minor v. Happersett, 1874.
In fact, John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of 14A, had officially clarified that 14A applies only enumerated constitutional rights to the states.
“Mr. Speaker, this House may safely follow the example of the makers of the Constitution and the builders of the Republic, by passing laws for enforcing all the privileges and immunities of the United States as guaranteed by the amended Constitution and expressly enumerated in the Constitution [emphasis added].” — John Bingham, Congressional Globe (1871)
In a nutshell, there is nothing unconstitutional with respect to California exercising it’s 10th Amendment-protected power to interpret the 14th Amendment’s EPC as wrongly as it damn well pleases where education is concerned. This is because the states have never amended the Constitution to expressly protect intrastate educational rights; this is not a 14th Amendment issue imo. So the rest of the states can eat popcorn and watch the show while misguided California actually pioneers equal access to education.
In fact, maybe California’s education project will actually impress the states to the extent that they amend the Constitution to protect equal access to education. Thomas Jefferson would have liked such an amendment.
“The great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphases added].” —Thomas Jefferson: 6th Annual Message, 1806.
So late in coming, when you have nothing to worry about, due to tenure, you are able to do, say or teach whatever you want.