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2016

Law

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Education

Update On School Searches, Charles J. Russo Dec 2016

Update On School Searches, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

School safety continues to present significant challenges for education leaders. Yet as educators work to maintain school safety, boards face a steady stream of litigation because officials have searched students suspected of putting themselves or others in danger. For example, students have been searched because they were suspected of bringing into schools such prohibited items as alcohol, weapons, and drugs.

Education leaders must develop up-to-date policies that ensure safety but that also comply with the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures.


Tenure Wars: The Litigation Continues, Charles J. Russo Nov 2016

Tenure Wars: The Litigation Continues, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Teacher tenure is a controversial topic that continues to generate litigation. Parents and advocates of educational reform have filed claims alleging, in part, that school officials violate the rights of students who are not achieving academically largely because of the ineffective instruction the students receive from teachers.

Typically, these suits also claim that conditions in districts where students perform poorly on academic measures are exacerbated by the protection that state tenure laws—in conjunction with union efforts—afford ineffective teachers, thereby making it difficult to dismiss the teachers for incompetence.

In North Carolina Association of Educators v. State (2016), a North Carolina …


Affirmative Action Returns To The Supreme Court, Charles J. Russo Oct 2016

Affirmative Action Returns To The Supreme Court, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

One of the most hotly contested issues in education during the past-half century is affirmative action, also known as race-based admissions policies. Supporters defend the practice as one designed to take “affirmative” steps to eliminate the present effects of past discrimination. Critics respond that these policies do not address how granting preferences today remedies past harms, especially because individuals who are passed over when affirmative action is applied played no role in creating past inequities.

Insofar as debate over affirmative action has heated up yet again, this column briefly examines the history of Fisher v. University of Texas II (2016) …


Fair Share Fees, Teacher Unions, And The Supreme Court, Charles J. Russo Sep 2016

Fair Share Fees, Teacher Unions, And The Supreme Court, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Disputes over whether teachers who are not union members must pay for the benefits they receive under their bargaining contracts have been litigated for almost 40 years. Amid conflict over the ability of teachers’ unions to collect fair share fees from nonmembers, the Supreme Court re-entered the controversy in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (2016), leaving the door open to future litigation on the status of fair share fees.


Sexual Harassment In Schools, Charles J. Russo Jun 2016

Sexual Harassment In Schools, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Eliminating sexual harassment in schools continues to be a national concern. In fact, the Supreme Court has resolved three major cases on this topic, and lower courts continue to resolve a steady stream of disputes. The litigation has moved beyond teacher–student and peer–peer claims to include disputes over harassment because of actual or perceived sexual orientation.


Meeting The Needs Of Student Parents, Charles J. Russo, Rabiah Gul May 2016

Meeting The Needs Of Student Parents, Charles J. Russo, Rabiah Gul

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

In addition to the struggles teenage parents and their children face, in 2010, teen childbearing also costs taxpayers between $9.4 and $28 billion a year for such expenditures as public assistance payments, lost tax revenue, and public healthcare, foster care, and schooling, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (United States Department of Health and Human Services 2016). In light of the budgeting and social costs of teenage pregnancies and parenting, this is an issue about which educational leaders should be aware.


Supreme Court Docket Preview: Are Changes In The Offing?, Charles J. Russo Apr 2016

Supreme Court Docket Preview: Are Changes In The Offing?, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

During most Supreme Court terms, which begin on the first Monday in October and usually end in late June, the justices accept at least one case focused on education. Two cases before the current Court—Fisher v. University of Texas (2014) and Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (2014)—have the potential to affect education significantly. Moreover, the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday, February 13, 2016, may affect these and other cases, especially Fisher, considerably.


An Overview Of The Every Student Succeeds Act, Charles J. Russo Mar 2016

An Overview Of The Every Student Succeeds Act, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Controversial since becoming law in 2002 as the re-authorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has been portrayed by critics as federal overreach in education, even as supporters viewed the bill as a necessary reform to improve the academic performance of students in K–12 schools. Regardless, NCLB proved so unwieldy that 43 states and the District of Columbia received waivers from many of its accountability provisions in return for adopting policies favored by the U.S. Department of Education (Layton 2015).

The recent seven-year-overdue re-authorization of the law received widespread bipartisan support …


Teacher Blogging Redux: Post With Caution, Charles J. Russo, Marcus Heath Feb 2016

Teacher Blogging Redux: Post With Caution, Charles J. Russo, Marcus Heath

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

In the December 2014 issue of School Business Affairs, this column (Russo 2014) addressed a case from Pennsylvania, Munroe v. Central Bucks School District (2014), that explored the free speech rights of public school teachers who blog on the Internet.

In Munroe, a school board in Pennsylvania dismissed a tenured high school teacher who posted controversial, derogatory remarks about her students and others on her personal blog. The Third Circuit subsequently affirmed that insofar as the blog entries were disruptive to school operations, the teacher’s dismissal did not violate the First Amendment (Munroe 2015).

Munroe highlights the need for school …


Religious Freedom In Faith-Based Educational Institutions In The Wake Of 'Obergefell V. Hodges': Believers Beware, Charles J. Russo Jan 2016

Religious Freedom In Faith-Based Educational Institutions In The Wake Of 'Obergefell V. Hodges': Believers Beware, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s fateful words, uttered in response to a question posed by Justice Samuel Alito during oral arguments in Obergefell v. Hodges,2 likely sent chills up the spines of leaders in faith-based educational institutions, from pre-schools to universities. In Obergefell, a bare majority of the Supreme Court legalized same-sex unions in the United States. Verrilli’s words, combined with the outcome in Obergefell, have a potentially chilling effect on religious freedom. The decision does not only impact educational institutions—the primary focus of this article—but also a wide array of houses of worship. Other religiously affiliated …


Teacher Unions, The Right-To-Work And Fair Share Agreements, Charles J. Russo Jan 2016

Teacher Unions, The Right-To-Work And Fair Share Agreements, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The status of collective bargaining in public education has been in an almost constant state of flux recently. More than 30 states have adopted laws that allow teachers and other public school employees to form unions to bargain collectively with their boards over the terms and conditions of their employment.

Amid debates over their status in public education, the Supreme Court has consistently upheld the right of unions to charge fair-share fees even as it limited their scope. Fair-share or agency fees are based on the premise that insofar as nonmembers benefit from union activities, they should have to pay …