1977: Plyler v. Doe

The record

1. 1893

   Hispanic families appear in Tyler city directories as early as 1893, when Domingo Garcia, listed as Mexican, runs a restaurant at Broadway and Erwin.¹

2. 1920s

   More Spanish surnames appear in the directories, most of them living just south of the Cotton Belt tracks and east of the Levee.¹

3. September 6, 1977

   At the start of the 1977-78 school year Tyler ISD begins charging $1,000 for each undocumented child. MALDEF lawyers file a class action against it, and superintendent James Plyler’s name goes on the case.²

4. 1977

   The Handbook of Texas says MALDEF chose Tyler for a progressive judge (William Wayne Justice), sympathetic clients in families whose children held different immigration status, and a rural area where the media glare would be less.³

5. September 14, 1978

   Judge Justice strikes down the state law as applied to Tyler ISD.³

6. June 15, 1982

   The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the children’s right to attend, 5-4, in Plyler v. Doe.³

7. 2000 and 2010

   The census counts 13,234 Hispanic or Latino residents in Tyler in 2000, about 16 percent, and 20,511 in 2010, about 21 percent.⁴

8. 2014-15

   Tyler ISD has more than 18,000 students, about 45 percent Hispanic, nearly 30 percent Black and nearly 22 percent white.⁵