Ambach v. Norwick

Appellants
Gordon M. Ambach, New York Commissioner of Education, and other state officials
Appellees
Susan Norwick, Tarja Dachinger
Appellants' Claim
Norwick and Dachinger should not receive permanent certification as public school teachers because they are not citizens and do not wish to become citizens.
Chief Lawyer for Appellants
Judith A. Gordon, Assistant Attorney General of New York
Chief Lawyer for Appellees
Bruce Ennis, Jr.
Justices for the Court
Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. (writing for the Court), William H. Rehnquist, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, John Paul Stevens
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
17 April 1979
Decision
New York may deny public school teaching positions to those aliens that refuse to apply for citizenship.
Significance
A state may bar aliens from government positions with a high degree of responsibility and discretion.
New York law normally denied certification as a public school teacher to noncitizens, unless they declared their intention to acquire citizenship. Susan Norwick was a British subject who moved to the United States in 1965 and married a U.S. citizen. Tara Dachinger, a Finnish subject, came to America in 1966and also married a U.S. citizen. Although both met the educational requirements for certification, they consistently refused to apply for citizenship. Norwick and Dachinger each applied for a teaching certificate covering nurseryschool through sixth grade. When their applications were denied, they sued inthe district court.
The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee all "persons" due process of law and equal protection. The Supreme Court thus has ruled that residents enjoythese rights, whether they be citizens or aliens. However, the Court has tended to grant some leeway to the federal government, which has paramount authority over aliens. Aliens are entitled to the procedural protections of the Fifth Amendment, but the federal government has the authority to deny welfare benefits to aliens and to exclude them from civil service jobs.
The Court has upheld stricter standards against the states. In Graham v. Richardson (1971), the Court declared that state laws discriminating against aliens would be subject to its "strict scrutiny." Aliens form a discrete and politically powerless minority. Laws applying exclusively to aliens must be confined within narrow boundaries.
The Norwick case reached the distinct district court in 1976. Applyingthe "close juridical scrutiny" standard of Graham v. Richardson, thedistrict court declared that New York had violated the Equal Protection Clause. The New York law, it stated, was too broadly written, since it excluded all aliens from all public school teaching jobs.
New York appealed this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-4 decision,it reversed the district court and declared the New York law constitutional.Justice Powell wrote the majority decision, joined by Justices Burger, Stewart, Rehnquist, and White. Justice Blackmun wrote the dissenting opinion, joined by Brennan, Marshall, and Stevens.
Only Citizens Can Perform the Basic Tasks of Government
Justice Powell began by reviewing previous cases involving aliens. He noted that the Court had permitted states to bar aliens from state employment undercertain circumstances. States may practice forms of discrimination that are forbidden to individuals. "The distinction between citizens and aliens, thoughordinarily irrelevant to private activity, is fundamental to the definitionand government of a state."
In particular, aliens might be forbidden those jobs that require a high degree of responsibility and discretion in the fulfillment of a basic governmentalobligation. For example, a state might bar aliens from the police force, a group charged with performing the most fundamental task of government. In allsuch cases, the state needed only to show "some rational relationship" between the discrimination and a valid state interest.
Like policemen, teachers exercise great discretion in performing a basic taskof government. Teachers have direct, often unsupervised, day-to-day contactwith students. They act as role models for students, "exerting a subtle but important influence over their perceptions and values." They influence attitudes toward "government, the political process, and a citizen's social responsibility."
They Want to Teach, but They Don't Want to Be Americans
New York's ban on aliens, Justice Powell continued, bears a rational relationship to the state's interest in educating future citizens. The law bars onlythose aliens who have refused to apply for United States citizenship. Such persons have deliberately chosen to focus their "primary duty and loyalty" on aforeign country and not on the United States.
In dissenting, Justice Blackmun argued that the New York law did not meet themajority's own test. New York, Blackmun stated, had not demonstrated a "rational relationship" between the law and the state's interest in education. Forexample, New York did not care whether teachers in private schools were citizens. The state even permitted aliens to sit on certain local school boards.
The New York restriction, Blackmun declared, "sweeps indiscriminately" and without precision. It irrationally implies that it is better "to employ a poorcitizen teacher than an excellent resident alien teacher." Take, said Blackmun, the example of Spanish language teachers. Why deny this job to a residentalien "who may have lived for 20 years in the culture of Spain or Latin America?"
The majority had argued that--in addition to teaching facts--teachers moldeda student's values. This emphasis on values also was inconsistent with earlier decisions, Blackmun concluded. For example, the Court allowed aliens to become attorneys, and lawyers are officers of every court in which they practice.
Related Cases

• Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).
  
• Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33 (1915).
  
• Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291 (1978).