Education Law Commons^™

Inconsistencies In State Court Decisions Regarding Public School Financing Are Violating The Constitutional Rights Of Citizens: Why The Nevada Court In Shea V. State Should Have Intervened, Corinne Milnamow

University of Miami Law Review

In 1973, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, which held there was no fundamental right to education under the United States Constitution. In the years that have followed Rodriguez, state courts across the country have been left to decide issues related to public school financing. Many plaintiffs in these cases will argue that education is a fundamental right under their state’s constitution and that their respective state’s public school financing structure—one that heavily relies on local property taxes—is unconstitutional because of the discrepancies in the quality of education one will receive in …

Education And Democracy From Brown To Plyler, Nicholas Espíritu

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Judicial review has often been cast in terms of democratic legitimacy. Democratic legitimacy is often linked to whether it institutes the will of the people through majoritarian rule and whether it creates processes for reevaluation of these prior decisions by newly constituted majorities. Judicial review of majoritarian decisions has often been criticized as a overriding or circumventing of these democratic processes. Beginning with Brown v. Board of Education, the Warren Court adopted a resolution of the “counter-majoritarian difficulty” of judicial review by tacitly accepting Justice Stone’s formulation from footnote four of United States v. Carolene Products and engaging …

Opening Remarks, Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Thank you. I am honored to be here. And there is no more fitting way to honor Michael than around the 40th anniversary of Plyler v. Doe.

This case centered on Texas statute § 21.031, which on its face, permitted the local school districts to exclude noncitizen children who entered the United States without immigration status or to charge admission for the same. The questions before the Court were: (1) whether a noncitizen under the statute who is present in the state without legal status is a “person” and therefore in the jurisdiction of the state within the meaning …

Silencing Students: How Courts Have Failed To Protect Professional Students’ First Amendment Speech Rights, Shanelle Doher

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Over the past two decades, social media has dramatically changed the way people communicate. With the increased popularity of virtual communication, online speech has, in many ways, blurred the boundaries for where and when speech begins and ends. The distinction between on campus and off campus student speech has become particularly murky given the normalization of virtual learning environments as a result of the COVID 19 pandemic. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court clarified that students retain their First Amendment rights on campus but that schools may sanction speech that materially and substantially …

Unmasking The Power Dynamic Between Local School Boards And The State Executive Branch: Implications For Future Local School Safety Protocols, Karla Michelle Cejas

FIU Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought attention to the government’s power in controlling the operation of public schools. The legal and political differences among local school boards and the State’s COVID policies are exemplified in media headline battles pertaining to school reopening and the Governor’s so called “anti-mask mandate.” The State capitalized on its emergency powers at the expense of providing local school boards with the autonomy to enact district-wide protective measures. Local school boards have faced several challenges in arguing against State Emergency Orders including a difficulty with proving state compulsion to comply with its directives, overly broad statutory language …