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56 Ind. L. Rev. 519 (2022-2023)
The Place of Broadband within Equal Education Opportunity

handle is hein.journals/indilr56 and id is 522 raw text is: Indiana Law Review Volume 56 2023 Number 3 SYMPOSIUM THE PLACE OF BROADBAND WITHIN EQUAL EDUCATION OPPORTUNITY R. GEORGE WRIGHT* Education is certainly an intrinsic good.' On the other hand, education is not just an intrinsic good . . . but an important instrumental good with positional features.2 One's education may open access to careers and to leadership roles.3 Crucially, though, one's access to desirable careers depends not simply on one's education, or on one's educational credentials, but as well on one's education relative to that of other persons.4 Education as an instrumental good is thus necessarily comparative among persons,' and thus, a matter of equality or inequality among such persons.6 Significant inequalities that are traceable to governmental policies implicate the right to equal protection of the laws under the federal and state constitutions.' How, though, should we characterize the relevant inequalities in the realm of public school education? That is, in the realm of public school education, * R. George Wright, Lawrence A. Jegen Professor of Law, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. 1. Consider Plato on the difference between culture, or the perfection of character, as distinct from training, as noted in 2 WERNER JAEGAR, PAIDEIA: THE IDEALS OF GREEK CULTURE 133-34 (Gilbert Highet trans., 1986) (1943). See also IMMANUEL KANT, EDUCATION 11 (Annette Churton trans., D.C. Heath & Co. 1990) (1803) (Man's duty is to improve himself; to cultivate his mind ....). 2. Elizabeth Anderson, Fair Opportunity in Education: A Democratic Equality Perspective, 117 ETHICS 595, 595 (2007). 3. See id.; Andrew Mason, Equality of Opportunity and Differences in Social Circumstances, 54 PHIL. Q. 368, 368 (2004) (access to the qualifications required for the positions is affected by social and economic institutions, especially those concerned with the provision of primary and secondary education). 4. This will be the case whenever there is significant competition for the more desirable positions and a societal desire to staff such positions with the best qualified candidates. 5. See supra notes 2-4. 6. For background, see San Antonio Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1 (1973); Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982); Gary B. v. Whitmer, 957 F.3d 616 (6th Cir.), vacated en banc, 958 F.3d 1216 (6th Cir. 2020) (mem.); R. George Wright, Educational Opportunity and the Limits ofLegal Obligation, 30 S. CAL . INTERDISC. L.J. 717 (2021). 7. See supra note 6.

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