## Facts

- Beatriz Vergara and eight other California public-school students sued the State of California, the Governor, state education agencies, and state education officials, alleging that statutory protections for teachers harmed students’ educational opportunities.
- The students challenged five California Education Code provisions governing: (1) the timeline for awarding “permanent” status (tenure), (2) procedures and protections applicable before dismissing permanent teachers for cause, and (3) seniority-based reduction-in-force layoffs (“last in, first out”).
- The students alleged that requiring tenure decisions after only about two years of employment (roughly 16 months of classroom teaching time) led districts to grant permanent status before they could reliably evaluate teacher effectiveness.
- The students alleged that dismissal rules made it difficult, slow, and expensive for districts to remove grossly ineffective permanent teachers, resulting in the continued employment of such teachers.
- The students also alleged that seniority-based layoff rules required districts to lay off newer teachers without regard to performance, while retaining less effective senior teachers.
- The students contended these statutes, in practice, led to more grossly ineffective teachers remaining in classrooms and that low-income and minority students were more likely to be assigned those teachers.
- Following an eight-week bench trial, the Los Angeles County Superior Court held the challenged statutes unconstitutional under the California Constitution’s equal protection guarantee and stayed its judgment pending appeal.
- The State and intervening teacher unions (including the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers) appealed.
- The California Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s judgment. The students then sought review in the California Supreme Court, which denied review, leaving the Court of Appeal decision in place.

## Issues

1. Whether California’s teacher tenure, dismissal, and seniority-based layoff statutes are facially invalid under the California Constitution’s equal protection clause because they allegedly burden students’ fundamental interest in public education and result in some students being taught by grossly ineffective teachers.
2. Whether the students proved that the statutes themselves create an equal protection classification or inevitably cause disadvantaged students, as a group, to receive an inferior education.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal reversed the judgment that had struck down the statutes and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
- The court held the students did not carry the burden for a facial equal protection challenge because they did not show the statutes, by their own terms and ordinary operation, necessarily cause any identified group of students to receive a legally unequal education.
- The court reasoned that the statutes govern employment protections (tenure, dismissal process, and layoffs), but do not direct how districts assign teachers to particular schools or classrooms.
- The court concluded that unequal exposure to ineffective teachers, even if present, depended on discretionary district-level decisions about hiring, placement, and assignment rather than being compelled by the statutes themselves.
- The California Supreme Court later denied review, leaving the Court of Appeal’s reversal as the controlling outcome in the case.

## Legal Principles

- A facial constitutional challenge requires proof that the law is unconstitutional in all or the great majority of its applications; it is not enough to show the law can be administered poorly or that other policy choices might yield better results.
- An equal protection claim aimed at a statute generally requires either a statutory classification that treats similarly situated persons differently, or proof that the statute’s operation necessarily produces unequal treatment of an identifiable group.
- When the alleged harm depends on intervening discretionary decisions by local officials, a facial challenge fails unless the plaintiff shows the statute itself, not those decisions, is what causes the unequal treatment.
- Courts distinguish between policy disputes about public-school governance and constitutional violations; where the claimed injury stems from implementation choices rather than the statutory text, the remedy lies in administrative action or legislative change, not facial invalidation.

## Conclusion

In *Vergara v. California*, the California Court of Appeal reversed a trial court decision that had invalidated teacher tenure, dismissal, and seniority-based layoff statutes on state equal protection grounds, holding that the students failed to prove the statutes themselves inevitably caused any group of students to receive an inferior education, because teacher assignment and many related causes of unequal exposure to ineffective teachers are determined by local district decisions rather than by the challenged statutes.


Vergara v. California, 209 Cal. Rptr. 3d 558 (2016)