Brianna Miles sent a message to J. Clifford Hudson Chairman and CEO, Sonic Corp. email address that said:
My name is Brianna Miles and I am a senior at Edmond Memorial. I am spearheading a documentary project regarding the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and its relation to public education in suburban areas versus inner city areas, and I was wondering if you would be willing to provide a taped interview as an alumnus. The general assignment is from C-SPAN, and the theme is “Choose a provision of the U.S. Constitution and create a video illustrating why its important to you.” I am very passionate about social activism and inspired by Jonathan Kozols ‘Savage Inequalities, in addition to our states current mishaps in budgeting regarding education, if you will; thus I wanted to examine the (subjective) violation of civil rights in the discrepancies in the quality of public education due to, in this specific case, location of institution.
As you know, there is no specific provision regarding education in the Constitution, so I wanted to look into the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment and apply it to education (similar to how it was used to address segregation of schools in the 20th century). The general legal consensus (and I havent researched this too thoroughly yet, so I apologize for any undeveloped thought) is that since control of education is not an enumerated power of the federal government, the regulation of it is given to the state. I suppose this documentary will serve as an insinuation that this should change. I want to investigate if there are considerable inequities between schools in suburbs and inner cities in 2017, and consider if the discrepancy in education is magnitudinous enough to merit the suggestion of federal intervention. Since you went to Northwest Classen High School, I was hoping you could provide some insight into your experience there. Please let me know as soon as possible!
