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Cir. 1999) (quoting Bazemore v. Friday, 478 U.S. 385, 400 (1986) and Bridgeport Guardians,Inc. v. City of Bridgeport, 933 F.2d 1140, 1146 (2d Cir. 1991)).There is no question that the State of New York and its Education Department are“recipients” of federal funding for purposes of federal civil rights laws. New York has promisedits school districts a minimum amount of state aid in order to ensure that each district is able toprovide basic instruction to its students. Currently, however, the likelihood that a school districtis receiving the full measure of state educational aid that it has been promised, and consequently,the likelihood that the district is adequately funded, is heavily impacted by whether the districtserves predominantly white students. The disparity between the percentage of required aidreceived by predominantly white districts and the percentage received by “minority-as-majority”districts is too significant to be coincidental, and too inequitable to be supported by a “legitimatejustification.” The State’s maintenance of this funding structure, which has the effect ofdiscriminating against students on the basis of race, violates Title VI.This inequitable distribution of aid has had a foreseeable negative impact onpredominantly minority school districts, like Middletown. The educational opportunities forMiddletown’s students have been seriously impaired by the State’s failure to adequately fundminority-as-majority districts. The funding disparity has created, inter alia: larger class sizes and higher student-to-teacher ratios; reduced curricula; cuts in and elimination of programs and electives and advanced placementcourses; shortages of textbooks and resources; shortages of technology;20
insufficient physical education and extracurricular activities; insufficient library resources; insufficient facilities.The practical and actual effect of the State’s distribution of Foundation Aid has been to create apublic education system where the whiter a school district’s population, the more likely thedistrict is receiving full or close to the full funding it has been promised. The State’s failure tomeet its Foundation Aid goals thus disproportionately and unlawfully impacts minority students,including the minority students enrolled in Middletown. As a public entity and a recipient offederal assistance, New York State is responsible for ensuring that its methods of distributing aiddo not adversely and disparately impact minorities. It has failed to do so.B. The State’s Distribution Of Foundation Aid ImpermissiblyDenies Equal Educational Opportunity To New York’sStudents Based On National Origin.The relevant portions of the EEOA provide:No State shall deny equal educational opportunity to an individualon account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, by . . .(f) the failure by an educational agency to take appropriate actionto overcome language barriers that impede equal participation byits students in its instructional programs.20 U.S.C. § 1703. “This provision of the EEOA was intended to remedy the linguisticdiscrimination identified by Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 94 S. Ct. 786, 39 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1974),in which the Supreme Court held that failing to provide for the needs of non-English speakingstudents ‘make[s] a mockery of public education,’ rendering classroom experiences for thesechildren ‘wholly incomprehensible and in no way meaningful.’” Flores v. State of Arizona, 516F.3d 1140, 1146 (9th Cir. 2008). In Flores, the District of Arizona held that Arizona’s fundingfor ELL students did not cover the incremental costs of ELL programming, and consequently21
Page 5: were eligible for free or reduced p
Page 8 and 9: Race to the Top application. 8The C
Page 10: school districts were assessed a De
Page 15: Middletown, a “minority-as-majori
Page 18 and 19: egulations, or orders of general ap
Page 22 and 23: that the “minimum base level for
Page 24 and 25: 82 percent of students failed to ac
Page 26: Dated: Garden City, New YorkSyracus

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