Law Commons^™

Banned Books & Banned Identities: Maintaining Secularism And The Ability To Read In Public Education For The Well-Being Of America's Youth, Megan M. Tylenda

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

Books containing LGBTQ+ themes and characters are being removed from public school libraries at a rapid rate across the United States. While a book challenge has made it to the Supreme Court once before, the resulting singular plurality opinion left courts without a clear test to apply, ultimately leaving students’ First Amendment rights in the air. Additionally, the increasingly relaxed view of courts towards religious influence in public schools indicates that if a modern case were to reach the Supreme Court, religious challenges may be accepted, which would leave LGBTQ+ students who seek to see themselves represented in literature without …

Incombustible Ideas: Evaluating The Impact Of Federal Court Opinions Regarding Book Banning In Public-School Libraries, Noah T. Holloway

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Outside Tinker’S Reach: An Examination Of Mahanoy Area School District V. B. L. And Its Implications, Michelle Hunt

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In the 1969 landmark case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court reassured students that they do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Ever since then, the exact scope of students’ free speech rights has been unclear, but the high court has used Tinker’s substantial disruption test to clarify its scope in successive legal challenges. In 2017, B. L., a Mahanoy Area School District student, was suspended from her cheerleading team after using vulgar language off-campus that made its way back to her coaches. She …

Private Schools' Role And Rights In Setting Vaccination Policy: A Constitutional And Statutory Puzzle, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

Measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are making a comeback, as a growing number of parents are electing not to vaccinate their children. May private schools refuse admission to these students? This deceptively simple question raises complex issues of First Amendment law and statutory interpretation, and it also has implications for other current hot-button issues in constitutional law, including whether private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students. This Article is the first to address the issue of private schools’ rights to exclude unvaccinated children. It finds that the answer is “it depends.” It also offers a model law that states …

Private Schools' Role And Rights In Setting Vaccination Policy: A Constitutional And Statutory Puzzle, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

Measles and other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases are making a comeback, as a growing number of parents are electing not to vaccinate their children. May private schools refuse admission to these students? This deceptively simple question raises complex issues of First Amendment law and statutory interpretation, and it also has implications for other current hot-button issues in constitutional law, including whether private schools may discriminate against LGBTQ students. This Article is the first to address the issue of private schools’ rights to exclude unvaccinated children. It finds that the answer is “it depends.” It also offers a model law that states …

Triggering Tinker: Student Speech In The Age Of Cyberharassment, Ari Ezra Waldman

University of Miami Law Review

This essay challenges the common assumption that public schools have limited authority to regulate cyberbullying that originates and takes place off campus. That argument presumes a level of myopia, clarity, and literalism in the law that simply does not exist. First, even assuming it existed, a geographic requirement is an outdated creature of a pre-Internet age. Cyberbullying poses unique challenges to young people, educators, and schools not contemplated when the Court decided its student speech cases. Second, I argue that a campus presence requirement for regulating any kind of off-campus cyberspeech never really existed, so any suggestion to the contrary …

Expanding The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Schools (K-12) And The Regulation Of Cyberbullying, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In a tragic case that received international attention, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince killed herself after being bullied—both physically and online—by some of her classmates. Phoebe had moved to Massachusetts from a small town in Ireland, enrolling as a freshman at South Hadley High School. After a brief relationship with a popular boy in the senior class, the taunting by her classmates began. Some students called her an “Irish slut” and a “whore,” knocked things out of her hands, and sent her threatening texts. Some of the students used Facebook and Twitter to speak badly about her. Phoebe suffered this treatment …

The Influence Of Setting On Supreme Court Religious Expression Decisions, Joseph J. Hemmer Jr.

Communication and Theater Association of Minnesota Journal

The First Amendment prohibits any establishment of religion, a dicta that has been applied in an apparently inconsistent manner by the Supreme Court when called upon to evaluate various forms of verbal and nonverbal religious communication. Court decisions have approved religious prayers and displays in government settings. When such exercises and displays were introduced to the public school academic setting, the Court chose to disallow the practice. An examination of judicial opinions reveals that justices recognize three factors inherent to the academic setting which justify the apparently contradictory decisions. Because of the captive nature of the audience, the presence of …

Harassing Speech In The Public Schools: The Validity Of Schools' Regulation Of Fighting Words And The Consequences If They Do Not, Adam A. Milani

Akron Law Review

What can - and should - schools do about the harassment which their students are suffering? While the issues of hateful and harassing speech and political correctness on college campuses have received a great deal of attention in both the mass media and legal journals, the very real problem of student-to-student harassment in grammar and high schools has only recently been given attention in either forum. More specifically, there has been little attention paid to the questions of whether (1) the First Amendment permits grammar and high schools to control harassing speech by students, (2) schools violate civil rights statutes …

Can There Really Be "Free Speech" In Public Schools?, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

The Supreme Court's decision in Morse v. Frederick leaves unresolved many interesting and difficult problems about the authority of public-school officials to regulate public-school students' speech. Perhaps the most intriguing question posed by the litigation, decision, and opinions in More is one that the various Justices who wrote in the case never squarely addressed: What is the "basic education mission" of public schools, and what are the implications of this "mission" for officials' authority and students' free-speech rights. Given what we have come to think the Free Speech clause means, and considering the values it is thought to enshrine and …

The Constitutional Issues Surrounding The Science-Religion Conflict In Public Schools: The Anti-Evolution Controversy, Michael M. Greenburg

Pepperdine Law Review

Since the infamous Scopes trial the matter of the constitutional validity of the "anti-evolution" laws has plagued both legal scholars and school administrators. The courts have generally invalidated legislation which bans outright the teaching of evolution in public schools, but with the advent of the "balanced treatment" acts, a revival of this litigation has begun. The author examines the constitutional analysis utilized by the courts in dealing with the "anti-evolution" and "balanced treatment" acts and provides an historical perspective of the first amendment to question the Court's response to the issue.

Tactics, Strategies & Battles—Oh My: Perserverance Of The Perpetual Problem Regarding Preaching To Public Shool Pupils & Why It Persists, Casey S. Mckay

Casey Scott McKay

After reviewing the history of the religious war on Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, my article, “TACTICS, STRATEGIES & BATTLES—OH MY: PERSERVERANCE OF THE PERPETUAL PROBLEM REGARDING PREACHING TO PUBLIC SHOOL PUPILS & WHY IT PERSISTs,“ examines why such a seemingly well-settled issue survives and even, to some extent, prospers.

First, by exploiting common misconceptions among the American public, lawmakers are able to take advantage of ignorance driven by strong emotions. Next, religious special interests groups, with seemingly unlimited funds, thrust propaganda supported by worldwide media reinforcement on an already vulnerable American public. Thus, irresponsible state legislators, caught between a rock …

Avoiding Religious Apartheid: Affording Equal Treatment For Student-Initiated Religious Expression In Public Schools , John W. Whitehead

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adolescent Identity Versus The First Amendment: Sexuality And Speech Rights In The Public Schools, Steven J. Macias

San Diego Law Review

This Article examines the legal tensions that currently exist between public schools' attempts to protect gay students from bullying and harassment and antigay students' First Amendment rights to engage in allegedly harassing speech. First, it looks at the popular conception of the relationship between childhood or adolescence and sexuality by considering the political and legal fallout of the same-sex marriage debate. Then this Article turns to a conception of public schooling that would allow for the constitutionally permissible regulation of antigay-identity speech. Next, through the use of critical theory, this Article explains why First Amendment defenses to gay harassment have …

Context And Trivia, Samuel Brenner

Michigan Law Review

My academic mantra, writes Professor James C. Foster in the Introduction to BONG HiTS 4 JESUS: A Perfect Constitutional Storm in Alaska's Capital, which examines the history and development of the Supreme Court's decision in Morse v. Frederick, "[is] context, context, context" (p. 2). Foster, a political scientist at Oregon State University, argues that it is necessary to approach constitutional law "by situating the U.S. Supreme Court's ... doctrinal work within surrounding historical context, shorn of which doctrine is reduced to arid legal rules lacking meaning and significance" (p. 1). He seeks to do so in BONG HiTS 4 JESUS …

Inculcation, Bias, And Viewpoint Discrimination In Public Schools, Lisa Shaw Roy

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Story Behind Vidal V. Girard's Executors: Joseph Story, The Philadelphia Bible Riots, And Religious Liberty, Jay Alan Sekulow, Jeremy Tedesco

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Divide: The Transformative Significance Of The School Prayer Decisions, Steven D. Smith

Pepperdine Law Review

This article challenges the standard view in which Everson v. Board of Education was the foundational and most important establishment clause decision and the school prayer decisions of the early 1960s (Engel v. Vitale and Abington School District v. Schempp) were virtually automatic corollaries. In fact, the article argues, it was the school prayer decisions that were foundational, subverting Everson’s “no aid separationism,” and animating not only later establishment clause jurisprudence but much else in constitutional and public discourse besides. Indeed, it is plausible to see the influence of the school prayer decisions and their articulation of secular neutrality as …

Tango Or More - From California's Lesson 9 To The Constitutionality Of A Gay-Friendly Curriculum In Public Elementary Schools, Amy Lai

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In August 2009, a group of parents in California filed a lawsuit, Balde v. Alameda Unified School District, in the Superior Court of California, County of Alameda. They alleged that the Alameda Unified School District refused them the right to excuse their children from a new curriculum, Lesson 9, that would teach public elementary school children about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) families. The proposed curriculum included short sessions about GLBT people, incorporated into more general lessons about family and health, once a year from kindergarten through fifth grade. Kindergarteners would learn the harms of teasing, while fifth graders …

First Amendment Protection Of Teachers' Instructional Speech: Extending Rust V. Sullivan To Ensure That Teachers Do Not Distort The Government Message, Emily White Kirsch

Cleveland State Law Review

The emergence of political activism in the 2008 presidential election extended throughout the country and even to where partisan politics have no place: the public school classroom. In 2004, the New York City Board of Education enacted a regulation that prohibited teachers from wearing any material supporting political candidates or organizations. During the 2008 election, teachers who wanted to wear partisan political buttons in the classroom while teaching claimed that the regulation violated their First Amendment rights. Although the Southern District of New York ultimately held that the teachers had no First Amendment claim, the court's decision, which involved sorting …

Student Speech: The Enduring Greatness Of Tinker, Jamin B. Raskin

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The Supreme Court's decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), did for the ideal of freedom in America's public schools what Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), did for the ideal of equality. It made a core value of the Bill of Rights spring to life for young people facing unjust policies and authoritarian treatment at the hands of adult officials in local school systems. In his remarkable opinion for the majority, Justice Abe Fortas upheld thirteen-year-old Mary Beth Tinker's First Amendment right to wear a black antiwar armband to …

Silence At The Schoolhouse Gate: The Diminishing First Amendment Rights Of Public School Employees, Neal H. Hutchens

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Balancing Public School Students' First Amendment Freedoms With The Blackboard Jungle: Are Students In Danger Of Becoming Another Brick In The Wall After Hazelwood?, Daniel Lattanzi

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can There Really Be "Free Speech" In Public Schools?, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

The Supreme Court's decision in Morse v. Frederick leaves unresolved many interesting and difficult problems about the authority of public-school officials to regulate public-school students' speech. Perhaps the most intriguing question posed by the litigation, decision, and opinions in More is one that the various Justices who wrote in the case never squarely addressed: What is the "basic education mission" of public schools, and what are the implications of this "mission" for officials' authority and students' free-speech rights. Given what we have come to think the Free Speech clause means, and considering the values it is thought to enshrine and …

Public School Students' Religious Speech And Viewpoint Discrimination, Kristi L. Bowman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Student Religious Speech Is Speech, John E. Taylor

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Administrative Regulation Of The High School Press, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note examines the constitutional limits on administrative regulation of publications by and for public high school students. Part I discusses the widely divergent standards adopted by different circuits. Part II describes the hard line the Supreme Court has taken against restraints on free expression in the adult context and the different circumstances that justify limiting freedom of expression in high schools. Part III discusses the timing of administrative regulation of student speech. This Part argues that prior restraint is constitutionally acceptable and, in fact, preferable to subsequent punishment so long as its use is governed by proper criteria. Part …

Protecting The Free Speech Rights Of Insurgent Teachers' Unions: Evaluating The Constitutionality Of Exclusive Access To School Communications Facilities, Stephen E. Woodbury

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Part I examines the traditional and limited public forum doctrines designed to guarantee speakers a right of access to public places, and finds these theories inadequate in the school union setting. Part II explores a recent addition to the free speech/equal protection analysis: the content neutrality doctrine. This doctrine mandates that when a school board allows one union to express its viewpoints, a duty is created to provide equivalent access to all unions, absent a compelling state interest. Part III reviews several justifications for limiting non-EBA access, and finds most of them without merit and none of them adequate to …

Teaching The Theories Of Evolution And Scientific Creationism In The Public Schools: The First Amendment Religion Clauses And Permissible Relief, J. Greg Whitehair

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note explores the propriety of teaching the theory of evolution and the scientific creation model in public elementary and secondary schools. Part I discusses the powers of the state and its political subdivisions to set public school policy and curriculum content and the extent to which those powers are circumscribed by the religion clauses of the first amendment. Part I concludes that the religion clauses permit the teaching of evolutionary theory in public schools. Part II examines the variety of judicial and legislative relief potentially available to creationists where the teaching of evolution theory interferes with their religious beliefs …

Constitutional Law--Church And State--Freedom Of Religion--The Constitutionality Under The Religion Clauses Of The First Amendment Of Compulsory Sex Education In Public Schools, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

It has been said that "[s]ex education, once the domain of the church and the home, has by necessity, become a responsibility of the schools." Indeed, by the operation of most state education statutes, sex education can be made compulsory in public primary and secondary schools if it is taught as part of otherwise compulsory classes or if the local school authorities have prescribed sex education courses as a compulsory part of the curriculum. While some of the state statutes authorize exemptions on religious grounds, most do not. Nevertheless, the introduction of sex education into public schools has not been …