At approximately 10 a.m. Monday, the California Supreme Court handed down a unanimous ruling concluding that undocumented immigrant students will remain eligible for in-state tuition fees at the state’s colleges and universities, instead of having to pay the higher rates that those out of state must anti-up.
The ruling will assuredly be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and there is no doubt whatsoever that SCOTUS will hear the case.
Interestingly, the ruling was written by Justice Ming W. Chin, considered to be the one of the most conservative justices on the panel, if not the most conservative—so conservative on certain social issues, in fact, that certain progressive activist groups urged voters to mark the NO box next to his name this past November 2. [Access the ruling here.]
(Go Justice Chin. You done good on this one, dude.)
Maura Dolan at the LA Times has more at LA Now. KPCC has quickly put together a show on the ruling. And there will be lots of longer stories later on today.
I’m off to USC shortly but I’ll revisit the issue tonight.
UPDATE – 8:55 pm: The longer articles are coming in. And there will likely more analysis in the next day or so. But for the basics of the ruling, the LA Times’ Maura Dolan, along with Larry Gordon, still has the best rundown.