Justices question Minneapolis resident’s right to sue over teacher contract
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When can a taxpayer sue a school district over its teacher union contract?
That’s the central question in a case the Minnesota Supreme Court heard Tuesday. And it’s a question that could have wide-ranging impacts for public-sector unions throughout the state — from educator unions to police federations.
The case, Clapp v. Cox, began after the Minneapolis Public Schools settled the teachers’ contract to end a three-week strike in 2022. As part of the new bargaining agreement, the district and union agreed on new provisions aimed at retaining teachers of color.
Traditionally, job cuts in schools follow seniority order of “last in, first out”: that is, the most recently hired teacher will be the first to be let go during budget cuts. Since teachers of color are more likely to be recently hired, these cuts disproportionately affect them. The language in the 2022 contract says that during a process of staff reductions or layoffs, the district can go out of seniority order to retain an “underrepresented” teacher over the “next least senior teacher.”
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Minneapolis resident Deborah Clapp filed a lawsuit, challenging the contract as an illegal use of her tax dollars. A district court judge dismissed her case, saying she had failed to demonstrate her standing. But the Court of Appeals reversed that decision and reinstated the case in a ruling written by Judge Theodora Gaïtas. (Gaïtas, who has since joined the Minnesota Supreme Court, recused herself from the high court’s case.)
The Minnesota Supreme Court announced it would hear the case to review the questions of whether Clapp had standing to sue as a taxpayer and whether her lawsuit is “ripe,” or timely, before the contract provision has been enacted. The court is not currently reviewing the legality of the contract provision itself.
Court arguments
Attorney Tim Sullivan, arguing for Minneapolis Public Schools, told the Supreme Court that Clapp had not met the threshold for standing in this case.
“This case is about when a mere taxpayer should be permitted to insert themselves into a collective bargaining agreement that’s been duly negotiated and entered into between a public school board and an exclusive representative of teachers,” he said.
Though Minnesota has a longstanding doctrine allowing taxpayers to sue over what they believe is illegal use of their tax dollars under certain circumstances, Sullivan argued this doctrine did not apply to Clapp. He repeatedly pointed to a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling from August, Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Hunt, clarifying the law on taxpayer standing. In that ruling, which upheld Minnesota’s law restoring voting rights to people convicted of a felony, Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote that taxpayer standing may be recognized “only when the central dispute involves alleged unlawful disbursements of public funds.”
Sullivan argued that Clapp’s central dispute with the school district was about the policies in the contract, not any incidental money that might be spent to put them into practice. He said that the law was designed for taxpayers to protect themselves from the injury of an increased tax burden resulting from illegal government expenses. There would be “virtually no limit” to taxpayers’ ability to file legal challenges to government policies if they can sue over the incidental funds used to implement policies, he said.
Justice Paul Thissen asked if the school district had spent money to implement the new contract provisions.
“No, Your Honor,” Sullivan replied. Minneapolis Public Schools has not laid off a teacher in 14 years, he said.
Justice Karl Procaccini asked who would have standing to challenge the legality of the new contract provisions, if taxpayers did not.
“If the language were to be utilized in a manner that a teacher believed that they were being discriminated against on the basis of a protected characteristic, that teacher would have standing to challenge the application of the language,” Sullivan said.
Michael Bekesha, an attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based conservative foundation Judicial Watch, argued on Clapp’s behalf.
“Ms. Clapp is challenging the expenditures that will be made and are being made to undertake the excising of the least senior teacher based on certain races and ethnicities, and the deprioritization of more senior teachers based on certain races and ethnicities,” he said.
The justices seemed skeptical of his arguments, and repeatedly asked him what made this case different from the taxpayer standing issue in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Hunt, the voting rights case decided in August.
“If we agree with you,” Justice Anne McKeig said, “I’m trying to think of a circumstance where the taxpayer wouldn’t have standing.”
Bekesha argued that the contract provision was illegal, and therefore any funds used to implement it were being illegally spent.
“The Minnesota equal protection guarantee prohibits governments from making decisions, from taking actions, exclusively, only, based on race,” Bekesha argued.
Hudson suggested that Clapp’s disagreements with the school district focused on policy, not funds.
“I think it’s a valid concern, but it does seem to me that that’s a policy issue,” she said. “That’s the very thing that we said in our recent decision in Hunt: That doesn’t get you there for taxpayer standing.”
Potential impacts
The implications of this case could go far beyond the Minneapolis Public Schools. A flurry of groups submitted amicus briefs in support of the school district, including unions, police professional associations, and the Minnesota School Boards Association.
In one amicus brief, Teamsters Local 320 and the St. Paul Police Federation wrote that leaving the Court of Appeals ruling intact would “lead to a flood of taxpayer challenges to collective bargaining agreements whenever a taxpayer disagrees with or does not like a bargained-for provision of the agreement.” Those concerns could apply particularly to their unions, the groups wrote, “given the recent animus towards law enforcement and, in particular, law enforcement labor agreements. … Taxpayers would essentially have the ability to re-write collective bargaining agreements through the courts.”
But the actual impacts of the new contract provision on the Minneapolis Public Schools may be minimal.
In another amicus brief, Education Minnesota, the state’s largest educators union, explained that layoffs in the Minneapolis school district have been quite rare in recent years. The union’s brief states that as far as it is aware, the Minneapolis Public Schools’ last teacher layoff occurred in 2010, when it discharged a Japanese language instructor citing a “lack of pupils” in her classes.
Only tenured teachers have rights during the layoff and recall process. Under the collective bargaining agreement, before layoffs can happen, the district must discharge Tier 1 and Tier 2 teachers, who do not have a full professional license, and any probationary teachers who have not yet achieved tenure. Those teachers then have the right to apply for reassigned jobs at other school buildings.
That process played out this spring, when the district “excessed” 452 teachers — that is, cut them from their specific school positions, but not from the district altogether — as Minneapolis Public Schools faced a $110 million budget deficit. Though 22 percent of all Minneapolis Public Schools teachers are people of color, 31 percent of the excessed teachers were, according to district data. Many of the excessed teachers found positions elsewhere in the district.
In the end, 50 teachers were “discharged,” or lost their positions altogether. Of those, 36 percent were teachers of color. But none of those teachers were tenured. And therefore, Minneapolis Public Schools told Sahan Journal, the layoff provisions in the contract did not apply during this spring’s budget cuts.
The Supreme Court has no deadline for when it could issue a ruling. A court spokesperson said that on average, it takes the Minnesota Supreme Court 4.5 months to decide a case.
Audio transcript
Now, before, Minneapolis Public Schools would have to lay off teachers in order of seniority. So the last ones hired would be the first to be let go. Now, the district can exempt teachers from underrepresented groups from that rule. But a Minneapolis resident sued over this provision, saying it's unconstitutional.
And what the court is weighing right now is whether a taxpayer who helps fund the district has legal standing to sue over something like a union contract. Sahan Journal Education Reporter Becky Dernbach has been following this, and she is on the line. Good to hear your voice again, Becky. How you been?
BECKY DERNBACH: Good, thank you, Cathy. How are you?
CATHY WURZER: Good. Good. This is an interesting story. Tell us about it. Who's the plaintiff in this case?
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So the plaintiff is named Deborah Clapp. She lives in Minneapolis, pays taxes here, doesn't work for the school district, and she's backed by the conservative law group Judicial Watch. And so she argues that this contract provision is an illegal use of her tax dollars.
CATHY WURZER: OK. Has this been done before anywhere?
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So Minnesota has this longstanding doctrine of taxpayer standing. And my understanding is that's common in different states as well. So in Minnesota, a taxpayer can sue if they think their tax dollars are being used illegally.
But the Minnesota Supreme Court actually had a separate case a few months ago where they clarified that that's only in certain circumstances when the central dispute is over the use of public funds. You can't just sue if you're a taxpayer and you're mad that your tax dollars are funding some policy you don't like. You have to have a specific example of how this is an illegal use of funds, and that has to be central to the argument you're making.
CATHY WURZER: OK. So there happens to be another case. Minnesota Voters Alliance versus Hunt ruling from August, I believe. Does that affect this case? And can you explain that?
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah, exactly. So that's another example of a taxpayer filing a lawsuit over a law they disagreed with. And so that was a case in which-- Minnesota recently restored the right to vote to some 55,000 people who had been convicted of felonies. And so there was a lawsuit challenging that from taxpayers, saying they didn't think that was following the law.
And the Supreme Court determined that they didn't half standing, and they dismissed the case because Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote that taxpayer standing can be recognized only when the central dispute involves alleged unlawful disbursements of public funds. And they were referring to that case, a lot during their oral arguments last week. So it seems like the Supreme Court feels like they've already addressed this issue, and this is a very similar case.
CATHY WURZER: So did they talk about who might clearer standing to bring this kind of lawsuit during oral arguments?
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So Justice Karl Procaccini asked school district attorney Tim Sullivan that same question. And I have a clip of that moment.
KARL PROCACCINI: So if we were-- just take for a moment and we were inclined to agree with the other side that this provision might be unconstitutional, who would have standing to challenge this provision?
TIMOTHY A. SULLIVAN: So if the language were to be utilized in a manner that a teacher believed that they were being discriminated against on the basis of a protected characteristic, that teacher would have standing to challenge the application of the language upon them.
CATHY WURZER: Did the justices seem to be leaning one way or another during oral arguments?
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. They didn't seem to see much difference between this case and the voting rights case they just heard in terms of whether taxpayers have the right to sue. And they seemed concerned about broadening taxpayer standing to cases that focus more on policy disagreements. Here's justice Anne McKeig.
ANNE MCKEIG: If we agree with you that it would be a very broad ruling, and I'm trying to think of a circumstance where, then, a taxpayer wouldn't have standing to intervene in such a proceeding-- so help me narrow that a little bit of what that would look like post-decision.
TIMOTHY A. SULLIVAN: Post-decision, I believe it would look like the same it's looked for the past 150 years, your honor. We're not asking this court to do anything new or to change the law. We're just asking the court to reaffirm its decisions going back approximately 150 years.
ANNE MCKEIG: But it seems like it is that any time a taxpayer is opposed to a policy, such as what seems to be a policy or process decision made by the school district along with the unions, that, then, you would have automatic standing to object, just alleging that there has been some form of an expenditure. It just seems too tenuous to me.
CATHY WURZER: So I'm wondering here, Becky, is it common for cases like this to be brought by taxpayers? We probably just need to touch on that one more time, I think.
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. It happens, but the taxpayer standing doesn't always apply. And so I think the question right now is, when can a taxpayer bring a lawsuit like this? And depending on what the Supreme Court rules, it could open the doors to a lot of other lawsuits.
So some public sector unions are worried that they would become much more common if the Supreme Court says that this taxpayer has standing. There were some police unions that filed amicus briefs saying that they worried about facing lawsuits from residents because police union contracts have come under so much scrutiny in recent years.
CATHY WURZER: By the way, how is the district countering these arguments? We heard a little bit of it, but just generally speaking.
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. The district at this point is basically saying that the case should be dismissed because she doesn't have standing, that she's just a taxpayer and she doesn't have enough to do with the union contract to be able to sue, and that maybe if she were a teacher who were directly affected by this policy and it had been brought into effect-- which, by the way, it appears to not have been, actually.
These provisions appear to not actually have been used at this point. They're saying that if they had been used and if she had been affected by them, then she would have the right to sue, but neither of those things is true. And so they're saying that the case should be dismissed.
CATHY WURZER: Say, let's talk a little bit here since we have some time about the actual contract provision that's at issue here. So, obviously, you've been busy following, and so have we, the budget woes in the Minneapolis Public Schools-- and other districts, by the way. Are you thinking that they might have to make some layoffs in Minneapolis?
BECKY DERNBACH: Yeah. So let's just define "layoff" for a minute. So with teacher union contracts, there are a couple of different ways that teachers get cut during budget cycles. And a layoff only applies to tenured teachers. And the district attorney explained this during oral arguments.
He said the district actually has quite a buffer in terms of making cuts before layoffs. Because before you would lay off a tenured teacher, first, you're going to cut your tier 1 and tier 2 teachers. Those are teachers who don't have a full license, who are in the process of getting a full license.
You would also cut probationary teachers. And those are teachers who just haven't been there long enough to get tenure yet. And that's a lot of people, especially as we've been dealing with teacher shortages in recent years and districts have gotten more creative about how they're filling those positions. So the district hasn't actually laid anybody off since 2010.
And so this year, I think, we are going to be looking at potentially more budget cuts. Minneapolis Public Schools is hoping to bridge some of the budget gap this year by passing a tech levy on the ballot this November. They're probably still going to have to make budget cuts even if that passes.
And so we still haven't seen the projections for what that's going to look like. It's possible there could be budget cuts, but layoffs have been pretty rare in Minneapolis.
CATHY WURZER: But there are these protections for teachers of color.
BECKY DERNBACH: Well, the teachers of color protections apply to tenured teachers. And so last year, they ended up cutting 50 teachers at the end of their budget cycle. You remember, they had to make some pretty serious cuts last year. And so they had to rearrange some positions. In the end, they discharged 50 teachers. And they were disproportionately teachers of color.
But since they weren't tenured, they weren't laid off. And so these contract provisions didn't apply.
CATHY WURZER: OK. Thank you. Say, when might the court announce a ruling? Do we know?
BECKY DERNBACH: So they don't have a deadline. The court tells me that the average time that it takes the court to make a decision is about 4 and 1/2 months, but it can really vary.
CATHY WURZER: All right. Becky Dernbach, thank you so much for explaining this for us.
BECKY DERNBACH: Thank you.
CATHY WURZER: Becky is Sahan Journal's education reporter. You can find her story at mprnews.org.
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