Click here for Part I of this series.

When we last saw our melancholy, yet spirited protagonist Mark Yudof, President of the University of California, he was making a brave rhetorical stand against the budget cuts aimed at higher education in the new California state budget. After all, the university administrators claim they must now lay off teachers and cut entire classes from the schedules. We ended by asking the question, could these particular cuts to higher education have been avoided? The answer is yes, and we will tackle the first reason below. You will see that it all comes down to priorities.

Illegal Plunder
In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Plyler v. Doe, found that a Texas law violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by denying funding to schools that taught children who had entered the country illegally. One school district allowed illegal students to attend, but only if they paid a tuition fee.

The Equal Protection Clause provides that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," and in a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court interpreted this to mean that states and municipalities could not prohibit illegal aliens from enjoying a free education, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. The majority felt that "Texas' statutory classification cannot be sustained as furthering its interest in the ‘preservation of the state's limited resources for the education of its lawful residents.'" They even acknowledge further in the opinion that the cost could become prohibitive for Texas taxpayers, but basically respond with, "Who cares?"

From this moment on, every public school across America was required to accept - and taxpayers to fund - every illegal alien child attempting to attend pubic schools. In the majority opinion, the justices admitted that there was no constitutional right to education, but felt somehow that the Texas law violated the rights of the illegal children. The dissenting justices wrote that while the majority acknowledged that education is not a fundamental right, the majority did not clarify exactly where education should fall in the spectrum of rights. Chief Justice Warren Burger also asserted that this decision should have been left to the state legislatures per the Tenth Amendment.

Fast forward to 2011. The cost to California taxpayers for educating children who illegally reside in the U.S. is roughly $3.2 billion - that's billion, with a "B." On the other hand, the current budget cuts to the university and community college systems total about $1.7 billion. Those are the cuts that will, according to critics, result in less opportunities and a diminished university experience for U.S. citizens. Unfortunately, California taxpayers are on the hook for funding the approximately 425,000 illegal alien students in the K-12 system. And sadly, these costs are just the tip of the illegal alien iceberg that is partially responsible for the sinking of California's once great ship.

Advocates for illegal aliens now argue that because taxpayers have already invested in illegal alien children in years K-12, and because the children have become invested in the system themselves, taxpayers also have an obligation to fund these students at the higher education level. Bear in mind that one of the objections to illegal alien children attending public schools on the taxpayers' dime was the prediction that these taxpayer funded benefits would inevitably extend into the realm of higher education. These worries were, of course, shot down as fear mongering, right wing rhetoric.

Right now, the advocates for illegal aliens and their allies in the California state legislature are on the verge of passing a few bills that would guarantee illegal aliens in-state tuition to public universities and community colleges. The bills would also permit illegal alien students to apply for scholarships and grants, allowing them to compete against cash-strapped U.S. citizens. (Check out this UCLA document that teaches illegal students how to squeeze the most out of the system.) Currently, it costs taxpayers $200 million per year in California to subsidize tuition for illegal students (some of them are eligible for in-state tuition under existing law). Imagine how this cost will skyrocket as more and more illegal aliens qualify for in-state tuition under the soon-to-be-passed laws.

Never mind that fact that in-state tuition is granted based on the notion that a legal resident's family has paid into the system to support the state university and should therefore receive a subsidized tuition rate as compared to non residents. The minimal taxes that illegal aliens pay is in no way comparable to the taxes paid by legal residents. And forget about the fact that the universities and community colleges are turning more and more legal applicants away due to the... oh yes, budget constraints.

All in all, illegal immigration costs the taxpayers of California at least $9 billion per year. When that figure is viewed next to the $1.7 billion in cuts to the higher education systems, we can see that there are alternatives available to the legislature and the Governor, besides firing teachers and eliminating classes. Though Plyler v. Doe set a precedent, that doesn't mean that states can't fight it today. For instance, the legislation might be able to pass a review of "rational basis" if is reworded to more narrowly restrict immigration, connecting immigration restriction to the ability of schools to deny entrance to illegal alien children. Or, there may be more current Congressional laws that would allow state legislation to "mirror" federal law, thereby providing a basis for exclusion.

It may be an uphill battle to overturn Plyler v. Doe, or find a way around it, but it would be a worthwhile endeavor for a legislature that supposedly represents the legal residents of the state (i.e. the ones that pay taxes and vote). However, as stated before, it is a matter of priorities, and for some reason the state of California appears to put those who break the law ahead of those who do not, and they have only themselves to blame as the ship goes down.

Stay tuned for Part III of this series.