Flores v. State of Arizona

The Case

This case was filed as a class action suit in 1992 on behalf of parents and students in the Nogales and Douglas Unified School Districts in Arizona. Originally, the class representative was identified as Evangeline Miranda on behalf of her children and other parents and children similarly situated. Miranda was eventually dismissed, and Miriam Flores was substituted in her place as the named class representative.

The complaint filed in 1992 generally alleged that the state was violating the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974 (EEOA). The EEOA requires that local education agencies including the state take “appropriate action” to help non-English-speaking students overcome their language barriers so that they can participate to the same extent as other students in public education. The Castañeda v. Pickard case provides the analytical framework for determining whether the EEOA has been violated.

The decision in Castañeda established a three-prong test for determining compliance with the EEOA. First, the state must have a recognized educational methodology in place for delivering language acquisition services. At the time the Flores case was filed, Arizona had authorized four different methodologies for use by school districts; none of these was challenged by the plaintiffs in Flores. Second, the state must allocate appropriate resources to effectively implement the educational methodology that has been approved; the plaintiffs challenged this prong of the test in Flores. And, third, even with a recognized methodology and adequate resources to implement it, the program must work. That is, it must produce results indicating that the language barriers confronting students are actually being overcome.

In 1996, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to include an additional claim. That year, the state adopted the AIMS test and established successful completion of the test as a graduation requirement. The additional claim asserted by the plaintiffs in Flores was that the AIMS test would have a disparate impact on minority students in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

U.S. District Court Judge Alfredo Márquez established a trial date of August 16,1999. The plaintiffs and defendants agreed that only the funding issues would be tried to the court and that the programmatic issues in the case would be settled by agreement of the parties and become the subject of a consent order approved by the court. The court heard three days of testimony concerning the state's funding for ELL programs. The court issued its judgment on January 24, 2000.

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