Law Commons^™

Equality Opportunity And The Schoolhouse Gate, Derek Black, Michelle Adams

Faculty Publications

Public schools have generated some of the most far-reaching cases to come before the Supreme Court. They have involved nearly every major civil right and liberty found in the Bill of Rights. The cases are often reflections of larger societal ills and anxieties, from segregation and immigration to religion and civil discourse over war. In that respect, they go to the core of the nation’s values. Yet constitutional law scholars have largely ignored education law as a distinct area of study and importance.

Justin Driver’s book cures that shortcoming, offering a three-dimensional view of how the Court’s education law jurisprudence …

Student Protests And Academic Freedom In An Age Of #Blacklivesmatter, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Student activism has been part of the fabric of American higher education since the eighteenth century. Indeed, some scholars have called it "as American as apple pie." From Harvard's "Great Butter Rebellion" in 1766 when students pushed for better food to the multicultural movement of today when students have demanded increased diversity in student, staff, faculty, and curriculum, students have long pressed to have their voices heard. Continuing in this tradition, we now live in an age of student activists who, by organizing through social media, are getting more people involved in political conversations and causes than would otherwise …

It’S Not Complicated: Containing Criminal Law’S Influence On The Title Ix Process, Margaret B. Drew

Faculty Publications

Title IX processes that address campus sexual assault are undergoing dramatic changes in structure as well as in review. After receipt of the Department of Education’s 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter, colleges and universities were impelled to review how their institutions were implementing Title IX. From website information through decision making on alleged violations, the ways in which higher education addresses federally guided changes is a matter of national conversation. This essay addresses change in light of campus sexual assault allegations, and does not explicitly address other forms of Title IX complaints, such as athletic funding and opportunities. This essay will …

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 …

Beyond The Schoolhouse Gates: The Unprecedented Expansion Of School Surveillance Authority Under Cyberbulling Laws, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

For several years, states have grappled with the problem of cyberbullying and its sometimes devastating effects. Because cyberbullying often occurs between students, most states have understandably looked to schools to help address the problem. To that end, schools in forty-six states have the authority to intervene when students engage in cyberbullying. This solution seems all to the good unless a close examination of the cyberbullying laws and their implications is made. This Article explores some of the problematic implications of the cyberbullying laws. More specifically, it focuses on how the cyberbullying laws allow schools unprecedented surveillance authority over students. This …

Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom: The Failure Of The Courts To Recognize Students' Severe Emotional Harm As Unconstitutional, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

Sometimes the very people who are supposed to teach, nurture, and protect students in public schools — the students’ teachers, principals, coaches, and other school officials — are instead the people who harm them. Public school officials have beaten students, causing significant physical harm. They have also left students suffering from depression, suicidal ideation, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When school officials cause such severe harm to students, all the federal courts of appeals to consider the issue have concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment at least in theory protects them, regardless of whether the form of the harm is emotional or …

The Curious Life Of In Loco Parentis At American Universities, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

In this article I trace the legal history, through court opinions, of in loco parentis (Latin for “in the place of the parent”) as applied to the relationship between American universities and their students. I demonstrate that until the 1960s, the in loco parentis doctrine allowed universities to exercise great discretion in developing the “character” of their students without respect to their students’ constitutional rights. The demise of this doctrine forced courts, and universities themselves, to redefine the relationship of universities with their students in important ways.

Actually, We Are Leaving Children Behind: How Changes To Title I Under The No Child Left Behind Act Have Helped Relieve Public Schools Of The Responsibility For Taking Care Of Disadvantaged Students' Needs, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

This article calls attention to the changes to Title I under NCLB that do a disservice to disadvantaged students. Under NCLB, Title I has shifted from its original focus on meeting the needs of disadvantaged students. These changes have removed almost any responsibility at all for taking care of the needs of disadvantaged students so they can learn in school, something this article terms ‘dynamic caretaking.’ It calls for revising Title I to require this kinds of dynamic caretaking in order to improve disadvantaged students’ access to education in public schools.

Censorship Tsunami Spares College Media: To Protect Free Expression On Public Campuses, Lessons From The "College Hazelwood" Case, Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Faculty Publications

Since the advent of journalism schools in the college academy, student publications have taken their place as a vital component of campus life. As counterparts to the Fourth Estate in the society at large, college journalists act as watchdogs on student government, ensuring that student money is wisely spent and student justice equitably administered. As an outpost of the Fourth Estate, college journalism serves all the public by monitoring the administration of higher education. In September 1999, a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit threatened to radically distort the face of college journalism by rendering …