The Minnesota court of appeals has again rejected a lawsuit alleging that teacher tenure and seniority rights in public schools saddle students of color with ineffective teachers and therefore violate those students’ right to an adequate education.
The state supreme court last year told the appeals court to reconsider its 2017 dismissal of the suit by four parents in light of a fresh high-court ruling in a desegregation lawsuit that expanded the ability of courts to intervene if students are deprived of their right to an adequate education.
But a three-judge panel of the appellate court stood by the earlier decision that the tenure lawsuit should be dismissed. The court concluded that even in light of the supreme court’s ruling, the lawsuit still failed to establish that tenure and seniority-based layoff protections for teachers violate students’ constitutional rights.
