Compulsory Education and Substantive Due Process: Asserting Student Rights to a Safe and Healthy School Facility

Abstract

This Article asserts that students have a substantive due process right to a public school facility that meets minimum health and safety requirements. Students who cannot afford private school are effectively required by law to spend six to eight hours a day in whatever facilities their state education system provides. Constitutionally protected rights to personal security and bodily integrity are implicated when these facilities directly threaten students’ immediate heath and safety – for example, locked or non-functional bathrooms, unsafe drinking water, or classroom walls covered with asthma-inducing mold. Compulsory education under these conditions violates the substantive limits on state action set by the Due Process Clause.