MALDEF has set up an education-litigation project, filed on behalf of undocumented parents' children barred from public schools. In
Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court held these children protected by the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This would not be the last time MALDEF filed suit for equal opportunity for education. In
LULAC et al. v. Richards et al., a 1987 class-action lawsuit charged the State of Texas with discrimination against Mexican Americans in south Texas because of inadequate funding of colleges. In the University of Texas system, the UT campus in Austin (historically the campus attended by more children of the state's prestigious and high earnings individuals) actually received more funding than all other campuses combined. The jury did not find the state guilty of discrimination, but did find the legislature failed to establish "first-class" colleges and universities elsewhere in the state. Looking to avoid further embarrassing suits, the legislature passed the South Texas Initiative to improve University of Texas System schools in Brownsville, Edinburg, San Antonio, and El Paso, and Texas A&M University System branches in Corpus Christi, Laredo, and Kingsville. The Border Region Higher Education Council helped pass the legislation and monitored the program's progress. Today the situation has somewhat improved, though UT Austin still receives a disproportionate share of funding. In 1974, president of MALDEF,
Vilma Martinez, created the
Chicana Rights Project (CRP). The project focused on Mexican-American women's unique legal issues. It lasted until 1983 when funding ran out. MALDEF, along with the
ACLU, sued
Los Angeles County in 1981, accusing the county of arranging voting districts to frustrate Hispanic political power. Considerable changes in the district lines resulted. The case resulted in new lines drawn for Texas' 23rd Congressional District and a special election (where another MALDEF suit opened the polls early) resulting in the Latino community having the opportunity to elect its candidate of choice to Congress. In 2010, the fund strongly opposed
Arizona SB1070, the toughest and broadest anti-illegal immigration measure seen in the U.S. in generations. The fund said it might challenge the constitutionality of the law. MALDEF had challenged the 2004 law, also known as Proposition 200, on grounds that it was unconstitutional and in violation of federal law because it forced voters to meet onerous new identification requirements at the polls and imposed unnecessary paperwork requirements on those seeking to register to vote. ==Staff==