Civil Rights in Education in California: The Williams Case and the Williams Complaint
PART ONE
Education is a right that has been enshrined in the California Constitution. Article IX, section five, which was adopted in 1879, states:
“The Legislature shall provide for a system of common schools by which a free school shall be kept up and supported in each district at least six months every year, after the first year in which a school has been established.”
Despite this, the struggle for civil rights in public education in California continues. The Williams Complaint procedure, named for a decades-old court case, has been developed over the years to help remedy inequities in California public schools.
The case of Williams v. State of California was filed in California Superior Court on May 17, 2000. The date of May 17 was chosen because it was the anniversary of the 1954 decision in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education.
Chief Justice Earl Warren, who wrote the unanimous opinion, penned the following words: “Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.”
The Williams case was named for its original plaintiff, Eliezer Williams, who attended what is now Balboa High School. He was subsequently joined by others in what became a class action lawsuit that included children in 46 schools across California. The student plaintiffs were mostly low-income, African-American and Latinx. Litigants were represented pro bono.
The plaintiffs made their case in the spirit of civil rights, looking through the lens of the Brown decision. They argued that Williams and his peers were forced to attend “schools that shock the conscience.” At the time, some 45,000 teachers in California did not have their full teaching credentials. Teachers could not assign homework, because there were not enough textbooks. Some classes were taught by a series of substitute teachers. Additionally, school facilities were in an awful state of disrepair, with “broken windows, falling ceiling tiles, rodent infestations, and filthy, unusable bathrooms.”
The Williams case focused on the three elements of qualified teachers, safe facilities, and adequate instructional materials. Plaintiffs alleged that, in their schools, these elements were so deficient that it constituted a denial of their educational rights. Echoing the words of the Brown decision, they demanded that essential educational tools be available to all students “on equal terms.” The guiding principle was that if some students have access to vital elements of the learning environment, then all students must have them.
Defendants in the case were the Governor of California, the state Board of Education, and the state Superintendent of Public Instruction. Using standardized test scores as its preferred metric, defendants asserted that family background was the biggest determining factor in determining student outcomes. They argued that student achievement was not something that the state government could affect.
The Williams case was settled in 2004–2005, resulting in additional funding for California schools, state legislation, and amendments to the California Education Code.
One of the changes that followed the Williams settlement was updates to the School Accountability Report Cards (SARC). SARCs had been implemented in the late 1980s, but were enhanced to more closely reflect the results of test scores and facilities inspections. A School Accountability Report Card is available online for every public school in California.
The Williams settlement also mandated the development of a uniform complaint procedure that is called the Williams Complaint. It was designed to be a citizen complaint procedure.
One can find the Williams Complaint form on a San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) web site.
Next in PART TWO: The Williams Complaint in Practice: The Case of Buena Vista Horace Mann.
