Pennsylvania district’s policy of basing teacher salary, in part, on prior in-state teaching experience did not violate teacher’s constitutionally protected right to interstate travel
Connelly v. Steel Valley Sch. Dist., No. 11-4206 (3d Cir. Jan. 24, 2013)
Abstract: A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (PA, NJ, DE, VI) has ruled that a school district’s policy of basing teacher salaries, in part, on prior in-state teaching experience did not violate a teacher’s constitutional right to interstate travel. The panel concluded that the policy’s experience-based classification did not implicate a fundamental right, which did not require it to be narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest in order to pass constitutional muster.
As a result, the panel applied the rational basis test. It concluded that the policy’s “experience-based salary classification is sufficiently tied to the legitimate state purpose of promoting an efficient and effective public school system to pass the rational basis test.”
Facts/Issues: At the time the Steel Valley School District (SVSD) hired Patrick Connelly as a teacher, he had nine years of teaching experience, all in Maryland. SVSD employs a salary scale that pays teachers based on their education and years of experience. Because Connelly acquired his experience outside Pennsylvania, SVSD credited him with only one year of teaching experience. Under SVSD’s policy, other new teachers with like experience acquired within Pennsylvania, but not at SVSD, received at least partial credit for each year they had taught.
As a result of the policy, Connelly’s starting salary was substantially lower than it would have been had SVSD given him full credit for his experience, which adversely affected him each year he received a salary increase. In June 2011, he filed suit in federal district court against SVSD raising Fourteenth Amendment claims. The suit charged that SVSD’s failure to fully credit his out-of-state teaching experience violated his right to interstate travel under the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and denied him equal protection under the law.
The district court granted SVSD’s motion to dismiss the suit, “holding that Connelly – does not state a cognizable Fourteenth Amendment claim because the classification alleged is based on location of teaching experience, not residency.” Connelly argued on appeal that SVSD’s “salary scale impaired his right to travel interstate in violation of the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV (as incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment) and the Equal Protection Clause.”
Ruling/Rationale: The Third Circuit panel affirmed the lower court’s decision. It began its analysis by addressing the question of which equal protection standard governs its review of SVSD’s pay scale. It noted that both claims would be subject to the same standard because “the right to interstate travel finds its most forceful expression in the context of [the] equal protection analysis.”
The panel first pointed out that a classification is subject to a strict scrutiny analysis only if it burdens a fundamental right or targets a suspect class. In the case of SVSD’s pay scale, it found that Connelly was arguing that it was burdening his fundamental right to interstate travel.
The panel stated that the right to travel includes three components: (1) the right of a citizen of one state to enter and to leave another state; (2) the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien when temporarily present in the second state; and (3) for those travelers who elect to become permanent residents, the right to be treated like other citizens of that state. The panel pointed out that the parties agreed that only the third component was at issue.
The panel next moved to a discussion of whether SVSD’s experience-based classification penalized Connelly’s fundamental right to be treated like other Pennsylvania citizens. It determined that under this component, strict scrutiny applies when the state conditions the receipt of certain government benefits on the duration of the recipient’s residence in the state.
The panel agreed with the district court that SVSD’s classification is based on the location of the teaching experience, not duration of the teacher’s residency. As a result, a lifelong Pennsylvania resident, for example, who taught in Maryland and later sought a teaching position in Pennsylvania would be subject to the same classification as Connelly. While conceding that SVSD’s classification creates some incidental burden on interstate travel, the panel concluded: “Because Steel Valley‘s salary classification treats citizens differently based only on their teaching experience irrespective of their residency, strict scrutiny does not apply.”
The panel rejected Connelly’s reliance on Erisman v. Chartiers Valley School District, No. 00-1102 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 17, 2001), a case in which a district court held that a experience-based salary classification was subject to strict scrutiny. In declining to follow Erisman, the panel said, “The relevant distinction when evaluating a claim asserting a violation of the fundamental right to travel is between long-term and short-term residents, not current residents and prospective residents.”
Concluding that the “right to travel simply is not implicated when there is no discrimination based on the duration of one‘s residency,” the panel, therefore, subjected SVSD’s salary classification to rational basis review. It found that the experience-based salary classification was “sufficiently tied to the legitimate state purpose of promoting an efficient and effective public school system to pass the rational basis test.”
The panel agreed with the district court that the two justifications the lower court identified offer greater compensation to those with in-state teaching experience, i.e., “valuing familiarity with the Pennsylvania Department of Education‘s policies, procedures, and regulations; and promoting efficiency in the education system,” and provide a legitimate rationale for the salary classification.
Connelly v. Steel Valley Sch. Dist., No. 11-4206 (3d Cir. Jan. 24, 2013)
