## Facts

- California’s Education Code included three groups of rules affecting public-school teachers: a permanent-employment (tenure) statute, statutes governing dismissal of permanent teachers, and a “last in, first out” (LIFO) layoff statute.
- Under the permanent-employment statute, a teacher who is reelected for a third year becomes a permanent employee (tenured).
- The decision whether to reelect a teacher for a third year had to be made by March 15 of the teacher’s second year, with recommendations due even earlier.
- California’s teacher induction program lasts two years, and a teacher’s performance in that program cannot be fully evaluated before the end of the two-year period.
- Induction-program performance affects whether a teacher is recommended for full credentialing, meaning a district could grant permanent status to a teacher who later fails to obtain (or maintain) full credentialing.
- Evidence at trial compared California’s short tenure timeline to other states: only a small number grant tenure in two years or less; many use three years or more, and some have no tenure system.
- Under the dismissal statutes, terminating a tenured teacher required a lengthy and formal procedure that could take roughly two to ten years and cost school districts significant sums (described at trial as tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars).
- The plaintiffs presented evidence that, because of the time and cost of the dismissal process, districts sometimes kept “grossly ineffective” teachers rather than pursuing dismissal.
- The plaintiffs presented evidence that a small share of teachers (described at trial as roughly 1% to 3%) were “grossly ineffective,” and that keeping such teachers could substantially harm students’ educational outcomes.
- Under the LIFO statute, when layoffs occurred, districts had to lay off teachers strictly by seniority and could not retain a less senior teacher based on effectiveness.
- The plaintiffs asserted that low-performing schools—serving higher concentrations of minority and high-poverty students—were more likely to be staffed with grossly ineffective teachers due to the combined effects of the tenure timeline, dismissal rules, and seniority-based layoffs.
- Nine public-school students, including lead plaintiff Beatriz Vergara, sued the State of California and state education officials, alleging the statutes violated the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.

## Issues

1. Whether California’s permanent-employment, dismissal, and LIFO layoff statutes, on their face, violated the equal protection clause of the California Constitution by burdening students’ equal educational opportunity.
2. Whether the challenged statutes materially affected a fundamental interest in education such that strict scrutiny applied under California equal protection law.
3. Whether the State established a sufficiently compelling justification for the statutory scheme and that the scheme was narrowly drawn to avoid unnecessary harm to students.

## Decision

- The Superior Court held the challenged permanent-employment statute, dismissal statutes, and LIFO layoff statute unconstitutional under the California Constitution’s equal protection guarantee.
- The court found the statutes had a real and appreciable negative effect on students’ educational opportunity by contributing to the retention of grossly ineffective teachers and by limiting districts’ ability to make effectiveness-based decisions about tenure, dismissal, and layoffs.
- The court concluded the statutes disproportionately harmed students in schools serving higher proportions of low-income and minority students.
- The court granted injunctive relief barring enforcement of the challenged provisions but stayed the injunction pending appeal.

## Legal Principles

- Under California equal protection doctrine, education is treated as a fundamental interest for purposes of assessing whether laws that materially affect educational opportunity must satisfy strict scrutiny.
- When strict scrutiny applies, the State must show a compelling governmental interest and that the challenged statutory means are narrowly drawn to accomplish that interest without unnecessary impairment of students’ rights.
- A facial constitutional challenge requires showing the statute’s terms and operation, not merely discretionary third-party decisions, cause the constitutional violation.
- Evidence of practical consequences—such as the timing of tenure decisions, the costs and duration of dismissal procedures, and mandatory seniority-only layoffs—may be used to evaluate whether a statutory scheme has a real and appreciable impact on equal educational opportunity.

## Conclusion

In *Beatriz Vergara v. State of California*, the Los Angeles County Superior Court concluded that California’s statutory rules governing the timing of teacher tenure, the procedures for dismissing tenured teachers, and seniority-only layoffs violated the state constitutional guarantee of equal protection because their operation burdened students’ equal educational opportunity and fell most heavily on low-income and minority students; the court enjoined enforcement of the statutes but stayed relief pending appeal.


Beatriz Vergara v. State of California, Case No.: BC484648 (2014)