Case Touched Many Parts of Community

In a close-knit Texas city, many of those involved remain, assess impact.

Tyler, Texas

James Plyler, the former superintendent of the Tyler school district, hasn’t talked much over the years about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on immigrants rights that bears his name.

But the 82-year-old retired school administrator—whose 1977 move to charge the families of undocumented children here $1,000 per student to attend public schools sparked a federal lawsuit—has more than made his peace with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against him and the school system in Plyler v. Doe .

“I’m glad we lost the Hispanic [court case], so that those kids could get educated,” he said in...