Even if a state is not constitutionally obligated to provide all of its children with an equal education, it should surely be constitutionally required to provide them with at least an education that gives them the chance to learn the most basic skills to succeed.

The obvious reason, as the court itself pointed out in 1982 in Plyler v. Doe, is that “illiteracy is an enduring disability” that will “handicap” children “each and every day” of their lives and take “an inestimable toll” on their “social, economic, intellectual and psychological well-being” for the rest of their lives.

In Plyler v. Doe, the court voted 5-4 to hold unconstitutional a Texas statute that excluded undocumented children from free public education.

But in the case of children who are attending a public school, how do we know whether a state has denied some of its children even the minimal level of education required by the 14th Amendment? That is the burden that the plaintiffs in the Detroit case must meet. After reviewing their evidence, the case seems to be open-and-shut.

As the plaintiffs demonstrate, “decades of state disinvestment in and deliberate indifference to the Detroit schools” have denied these children “access to the most basic building block of education: literacy.” At the schools involved in this litigation, which serve almost exclusively low-income minority children, the student proficiency rates “hover near zero in nearly all core subject areas.” At one school, for example, 100 percent of the sixth graders scored below proficiency in reading.

Why is this so? As the plaintiffs demonstrate, many classes lack even minimally usable textbooks; classrooms are overcrowded and have inadequate temperature controls so the students often suffer from extreme heat and cold; classrooms are infested with vermin; the drinking water in some of these schools is often contaminated; the bathrooms are filthy and unkempt; and many of the teachers assigned to these schools are asked to teach subjects for which they lack training or experience.

The simple fact is that these schools are a disgrace and they bear no resemblance to schools elsewhere in the state — schools that serve white and middle-class children. As the plaintiffs note, these schools deprive their students “of even a fighting chance” to succeed in society. Their existence cannot rationally be justified by any legitimate state interest. They are a disgrace to the state of Michigan and to our nation. One can only wonder what Gov. Rick Snyder would do if his children were assigned to such a school.