Law Commons^™

Educational Gerrymandering: Money, Motives, And Constitutional Rights, Derek Black

Faculty Publications

Public school funding plummeted following the Great Recession and failed to recover over the next decade, prompting strikes and protests across the nation. Courts did almost nothing to stop the decline. While a majority of state supreme courts recognize a constitutional right to an adequate or equal education, they increasingly struggle to enforce the right. That right could be approaching a tipping point. Either it evolves, or risks becoming irrelevant.

In the past, courts have focused almost exclusively on the adequacy and equity of funding for at-risk students, demanding that states provide more resources. Courts have failed to ask the …

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 …

Coerced Choice: School Vouchers And Students With Disabilities, Claire Raj

Faculty Publications

The landscape of public education, once thought to be a core function of the state, is shifting towards privatization. The appointment of Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education further cements this shift. In particular, DeVos intends to vastly expand the availability of vouchers and tax credits that use public dollars to fund private school tuition. The debate over this expansion and its impact on traditional public schools has been polarizing and combative. Thus far, commentators have framed vouchers as purely matters of choice and increased educational opportunities. Drowned out in the debate are the voices of students with disabilities. …

The School Civil Rights Vacuum, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

Recent cases of pervasive sex abuse at universities, including those committed by Larry Nassar at Michigan State University and by Jerry Sandusky at Pennsylvania State University, demonstrate the limitations of Title IX as a tool for protecting college students. What has gone far less recognized is that in the K–12 public school context, Title IX and other civil rights laws, including the Fourteenth Amendment, are at least as ineffective at protecting students from sexual, physical, and verbal abuse and harassment. Public school students rarely succeed on Fourteenth Amendment or Title IX claims, even in some of the most egregious cases. …

Free Appropriate Public Education After Andrew F. V. Douglas County School District (2017), Terrye Conroy, Mitchell Yell

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Breaking The Norm Of School Reform, Derek Black

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The People V. Their Universities: How Popular Discontent Is Reshaping Higher Education Law, Ben L. Trachtenberg

Faculty Publications

Surveys taken since 2015 reveal that Americans exhibit stark partisan divisions in their opinions about colleges and universities, with recent shifts in attitudes driving changes to higher education law. In recent years, Democrats have become slightly more positive about higher education. Concurrently, Republicans have become extremely more negative, and a majority of Republicans now tells pollsters that colleges and universities have an overall negative effect on the country.

Particularly in legislative chambers controlled by Republicans, public and elite dissatisfaction with higher education has led to legal interventions into the governance of universities, with new laws related to faculty tenure, the …