Law Commons^™

Cyberbullying, K-12 Public Schools, And The 1st Amendment, Jennifer A. Mezzina

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The first amendment protected students’ first amendment rights in K-12 public schools; however, state antibullying legislation required school officials to discipline students for bullying and, in most states, cyberbullying as well. An increasing number of students had access to mobile devices at home and during the school day. School officials had the responsibility to protect students from instances of bullying and cyberbullying; however, school officials did not fully understand the extent of their authority to discipline students for acts of bullying that occurred online, off school grounds. Despite the existence of state antibullying laws in all fifty states, contradictory appellate …

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 First, even assuming it existed, a geographic requirement is an outdated creature of a pre-Internet age.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 …

Suspension Representation Project: New Advocate Training, Suspension Representation Project

Flyers 2016-2017

No abstract provided.

Counting Zeros: The Every Student Succeeds Act And The Testing Opt-Out Movement, Paul A. Hoversten

Michigan Law Review Online

The story begins with threatening letters. In October 2014, the U.S. Department of Education reminded Colorado’s chief state school officer that the department “ha[d], in fact, withheld Title I, Part A administrative funds . . . from a number of States for failure to comply with the assessment requirements” under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Given the occasion, the department implied, it wouldn’t hesitate to be ruthless.

Colorado could be forgiven for assuming it was authorized to craft its own policies in this arena; according to the Wall Street Journal, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represented “the …

Why Some Religious Accommodations For Mandatory Vaccinations Violate The Establishment Clause, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

All states require parents to inoculate their children against deadly diseases prior to enrolling them in public schools, but the vast majority of states also allow parents to opt out on religious grounds. This religious accommodation imposes potentially grave costs on the children of non-vaccinating parents and on those who cannot be immunized. The Establishment Clause prohibits religious accommodations that impose such costs on third parties in some cases, but not in all. This presents a difficult line-drawing problem. The Supreme Court has offered little guidance, and scholars are divided.

This Article addresses the problem of religious accommodations that impose …

Civil Rights And The Charter School Choice: How Stricter Standards For Charter Schools Can Aid Educational Equity, Rachel E. Rubinstein

Law Student Publications

This paper analyzes the way variations in charter-enabling legislation may exacerbate segregation and how federal and state reforms could better utilize the charter system to further integration. Part I discusses the history of school choice and the social science underlying its potential as a vehicle for integration as well as further segregation. Part II reviews research on charter school demographics and the effectiveness of relevant civil rights statutes. Part III analyzes themes in local charter legislation that can influence charter school segregation by limiting accessibility for low income families and students with disabilities. Finally, Part IV offers recommendations for policy …

Tinker, Taylor, Schoolhouse, Speech: The Impact Of The Internet And Social Media On Public School Administrators’ Authority To Control Student Speech, Olivia Broderick

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Squeezing Public Schools’ Lemons: Theorizing An Adequacy Challenge To Teacher Tenure, Peter M. Szeremeta

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexualization, Sex Discrimination, And Public School Dress Codes, Meredith J. Harbach

Law Faculty Publications

This essay joins the conversation about sexualization, sex discrimination, and public school dress codes to situate current debates within in the broader cultural and legal landscapes in which they exist. My aim is not to answer definitively the questions I pose above. Rather, I ground the controversy in these broader contexts in order to better understand the stakes and to glean insights into how schools, students, and communities might better navigate dress code debates.

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 …

Vol. 7 No. 1, Fall 2015; Equal Access: A Proposal For Homeschooled Students And Athletics, Cora Moy

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

A prevalent issue that homeschooled students face is access to interscholastic athletics at public schools. Over the past several decades, the United States has seen an upward trend in the number of children who are homeschooled. In Illinois, the local public school determines whether homeschooled students may participate in activities at public schools. While this Comment explores a sample of varying laws and regulations on homeschooled student participation in public school athletics, the purpose is to examine the debate on homeschooler's access to public schools and why the Illinois Legislature should create a minimum standard that would allow homeschooled students …

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 …

Mainstreaming Equality In Federal Budgeting: Addressing Educational Inequities With Regard To The States, Elizabeth K. Hinson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Great Society reformers targeted poverty as the defining characteristic for a novel federal education policy in the United States in 1965. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), reincarnated within the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, distributes financial aid to disadvantaged students within public schools solely based upon students’ socioeconomic status. This Article does not dispute that financial resources improve student outcomes, but this Article argues that Title I’s funding formula is ineffective, and a new funding scheme – specifically, a mainstreaming equality funding scheme – must replace it. The implementation of this funding scheme …

Gutting Schools Won’T Solve Puerto Rico’S Debt Crisis, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

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 …

Sorting And Reforming: High-Stakes Testing In The Public Schools, Rachel F. Moran

Akron Law Review

As with “Millionaire,” these practices are widely accepted, roundly applauded, but nevertheless quite controversial. In this article, I will first examine the historical origins of high-stakes testing. Next, I will describe the growing interest in these tests in elementary and secondary schools as well as the tensions that have resulted. Then, I will explore the most significant challenges to the use of high-stakes testing as a requirement for graduation or promotion to another grade. This article will close by contemplating the likely future of the movement for testing and accountability.

What Do Prisoners And Zoo Animals Have In Common? They Have More Protection From Physical Violence Than School Children In Nineteen States, Heddy Muransky, Linda J. Fresneda

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Waivers Sought By Arkansas Charters: Should They Be Extended To All?, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Should traditional public school districts be allowed to use the same waivers as nearby charter schools? Perhaps the flexibility afforded to charters might be helpful for all schools by allowing them to become nimble, responsive organizations, less governed by inertia and more guided by innovation. House Bill 1377 proposes such an extension of waivers. In this brief, we examine the most common waivers that charter schools request to assess what types of waivers could be available to traditional public schools if House Bill 1377 were signed into law.

An Empirical And Constitutional Analysis Of Racial Ceilings And Public Schools, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Efficacy Of School Desegregation, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

No abstract provided.

Are Single-Sex Schools Inherently Unequal?, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

No abstract provided.

Litigated Learning, Law's Limits, And Urban School Reform Challenges, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

This Article assesses the likely efficacy of litigation efforts seeking to enhance equal educational opportunity by improving student academic achievement in the nation's urban public schools. Past education reform litigation efforts focusing on school desegregation and finance met with mixed success. Current litigation efforts seeking to improve student academic achievement promise to be even less successful because student academic achievement involves variables and activities located further from the reach of litigation than such variables as a school's racial composition and per pupil spending levels. Moreover, efforts to improve student achievement in the nation's urban public schools--especially high poverty schools--face additional …

Socioeconomic Integration And The Greater Richmond School District: The Feasibility Of Interdistrict Consolidation, Barry Gabay

Law Student Publications

This article seeks to offer a mitigating solution to the educational inequities plaguing Richmond Public Schools--socioeconomic integration and district consolidation. Under this race-neutral school assignment proposal, desegregation efforts are based not on an individual's ethnicity, but socioeconomic status. The proposal seeks to have no more than 50% of a student body receiving free or reduced-price lunch in any one school in the Richmond area. However, because of Richmond Public Schools' existing high poverty rate, no socioeconomic redistricting proposal would be effective without incorporating Richmond's adjacent suburbs- Chesterfield and Henrico counties.

"Law Is Coercion": Revisiting Judicial Power To Provide Equality In Public Education, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is an attempt to start a conversation about where we find ourselves in the plight to help our most challenged public schools. It is not intended to be a comprehensive solution to the problem, but rather a hard look at how, after decades of many efforts, we are further away from the equal education contemplated by the United States Supreme Court's historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education. This article does not desire to simply cast blame for the failures of our children, but to send a reminder that, as Frederick Douglass would say, we can hardly …

Charter School Facilities Funding, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The equity and adequacy of facilities funding for charter schools (as well as traditional public schools (TPS)) is a topic of hot debate in Arkansas and across the country. Proponents of charters argue that charter schools are burdened due to a lack of facilities funding. Other argue that there are great needs in our TPS districts as well, and that these needs should be met first. This brief describes what facilities funding is currently available to charter schools in Arkansas and what other states are doing that we could possibly leverage here in the Natural State.

Intra-Group Diversity In Education: What If Abigail Fisher Were An Immigrant . . ., Dagmar Rita Myslinska

Pace Law Review

In Part I, this Article briefly describes some aspects of white immigrants’ educational experience (including extracurricular involvement and parental roles), exposing how it reflects immigrants’ lack of access to the cultural capital of native-born whites. The Article exposes some unique challenges faced by Caucasian immigrants in high school, during the college application process, and in taking advantage of college opportunities that amplify social benefits. These experiences are contrasted with those of American-born students who benefit from their families’ access to social capital that enables them to take advantage of its replication in college.

Part II addresses how some of the …

Place, Not Race: Affirmative Action And The Geography Of Educational Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Ultimately, I argue that one important response to the demise of race-based affirmative action should be to incorporate the experience of segregation into diversity strategies. A college applicant who has thrived despite exposure to poverty in his school or neighborhood deserves special consideration. Those blessed to come of age in poverty-free havens do not. I conclude that use of place, rather than race, in diversity programming will better approximate the structural disadvantages many children of color actually endure, while enhancing the possibility that we might one day move past the racial resentment that affirmative action engenders. While I propose substituting …

Restructuring Local School Wellness Policies: Amending The Kids Act To Fight Childhood Obesity, Rebecca Edwalds

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Childhood obesity is a major problem plaguing the United States. Over one-third of children are overweight, and there is little indication that this trend will reverse in the near future. The federal government has attempted to combat childhood obesity through the National School Lunch Act, which regulates the quality of foods federally subsidized schools may serve to children, and provides broad goals for physical activity. These basic goals leave extensive room for states to implement different standards, and they are not sufficient to effectively confront the childhood obesity problem. This Note proposes amendments to the National School Lunch Act that …

The Intersection Of Family Law And Education Law, Debra Chopp

Articles

It is well-established that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in directing the education of their children. As family law practitioners know, however, parents do not always agree with each other on matters pertaining to their child's education. Where education issues arise in family law cases, it is important for members of the family law bar to have familiarity with education laws so that they may properly advise their clients. This article will identify and briefly discuss common intersections of family law and education law.

Missouri’S School Transfer Law: Not A Hancock Violation But A Mere Bandage On Wounded Districts, Kimberly Hubbard

Missouri Law Review

This Note first discusses the Breitenfeld decision and then explores the prior cases and legislation leading up to the Breitenfeld decision. In discussing Breitenfeld, this Note describes how the transfer law will affect transferred students, unaccredited districts forced to pay tuition, accredited districts forced to accept transfer students, and the public school accreditation system in Missouri. Finally, this Note proposes that because the adverse consequences outweigh the benefits of the law, action must be taken so that unaccredited school districts can have a fighting chance to become accredited again. Legislative change is necessary because a solution is not forthcoming from …