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Abstract

Nonresidents, like other persons, are entitled to equal protection of the laws. Limiting the enjoyment of state benefits to persons who have satisfied waiting period requirements can exclude nonresidents as well as new residents from state benefits in a way that violates the equal protection guaranty because the exclusion does not observe permissible standards of classification. The cluster of substantial constitutional questions created by Shapiro v. Thompson about state discrimination against nonresidents with respect to the enjoyment of state benefits may turn out to be the most phantom iceberg that the fundamental law has ever met. Moreover, whether nonresidents are entitled to attend a state college or university free of the higher, invidiously discriminatory nonresident tuition charge, if the local educational needs of a state's citizens have been completely satisfied, may prove to be the most short-lived substantial constitutional question in the history of the Court. The disposition of the tuition cases promises to give everlasting life to a segment of invidious discrimination by the states against citizens of other states, whose legality, but not practice, had been vestigial for a considerable time. This article is written in the hope of preventing the perpetuation of that kind of constitutional error by keeping the issues alive for discussion.

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