Education Law Commons^™

A New Hope: Perez V. Sturgis Public Schools Opens The Courthouse Doors To Children With Disabilities, Richard Marsico

Belmont Law Review

This article addresses what happens when the exhaustion

requirement for IDEA claims intersects with the exhaustion requirement for

related federal laws. Specifically, compensatory monetary damages are

not available for IDEA violations but are available for violations of

related federal laws. This raises a question: if a plaintiff wants to file a

complaint pursuant only to the related federal laws alleging disability

discrimination and seeking monetary damages for actions that also arguably

violate the IDEA, must the plaintiff exhaust the IDEA administrative

process first?

From Garcetti To Kennedy: Teachers, Coaches, And Free Speech At Public Schools, Emily G. Waldman

Belmont Law Review

This Article analyzes Kennedy’s implications for educators’ free speech rights at school. It is important to note, at the outset, that the Kennedy majority’s description of the actual facts at issue is highly debatable. Indeed, the majority presented a sanitized account of what actually occurred on the ground, minimizing the highly public nature of Kennedy’s prayers and the football players’ involvement in them. That said, if we take the facts as the majority presented them, and then move to the majority’s assessment of those facts, we emerge with an interesting gloss on Garcetti. Synthesizing Garcetti and Kennedy points toward a …

"Exceedingly Unpersuasive" - Discrimination, Transgender Students, And School Bathrooms, Mark Dorosin

Belmont Law Review

In 2015, the St. Johns County School District adopted a policy which prohibited transgender students from using the restroom matching their gender identity and required that they use either single stall restrooms or the multi-stall restroom corresponding to their gender listed on their birth certificate (their “biological” sex). Similar policies targeting transgender students had been implemented by school districts across the country; and like many of them, St. Johns’ policy was quickly challenged by a transgender student who asserted that the policy violated his civil rights. In late December 2022, a divided Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, …

Taking Our Position: Repairing The Breach In The Pipeline To The Legal Profession By Transforming The Impact Of Bias Against Black Girls In Student Discipline, Hon. Tiffany W. Brewer

Belmont Law Review

This Article implores the legal profession to intervene in promoting accountability in remediating implicit bias and discrimination in school discipline decisions disproportionately impacting Black girls’ educational outcomes, given their significant impact in disrupting the pipeline to the legal profession. The lack of accountability for disparate school discipline policies has resulted in little progress in decreasing the school-to-prison pipeline for Black girls. As a result, failures to eradicate implicit bias and discrimination in educational systems threaten the pipeline of future Black women law students, lawyers, and judges. This Article contends that if the bias in current school discipline policies toward Black …

Too Young To Suspend: Ending Early Grade School Exclusion By Applying Lessons From The Fight To Increase The Minimum Age Of Juvenile Court Jurisdiction, Peggy Nicholson

Belmont Law Review

In many respects, the evolution of juvenile court reform and school discipline reform follow similar trajectories. This Article begins by tracking those respective evolutions. Part I outlines the evolution of the juvenile court system in the United States and focuses on the fledgling system’s distinction of children from adults and its “rehabilitative ideal” that children could outgrow challenging behavior if given the right treatment and services. After a long period of “adultification” of the juvenile court in response to rising crime rates, more recent reform efforts have focused on returning to the early court’s rehabilitative model, including policies that would …

Democracy And State Education Governance, Quinn Yeargain

Belmont Law Review

This Article lays out the hundred-year-plus trajectory of state constitutional and statutory changes that transitioned education from a near universally democratized area of policymaking into one that unevenly balances democracy and professionalization. Part I begins by sketching out the starting position of democracy in state education governance: the initial creation of elected state education administrators and the pressures to reform these systems in the early twentieth century. Then, Part II explores the slow process by which the structure of statewide education governance shifted, discussing the methods by which reforms were proposed and the content of the proposed changes. Part III …

Once Upon A Fape: Contrasting The Fabled Hope Of Idea With Present-Day Pandemic Realities, Jenny Rodriguez-Fee

Belmont Law Review

Much like Hansel and Gretel in the widely known fairytale, children around the world have experienced trauma, loss, and profound impact to their physical, social, and emotional well-being due to the pandemic. Also, like Hansel and Gretel, students with unique needs have lacked the guidance, support, and prioritization by the adults who are meant to protect them. For some students, this failure to support by those adults charged with their education has been occurring for decades. For many, they were left alone in the woods in March 2020, the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Forced to isolate from teachers and …

Maximizing The Educational Choice Wave By Rethinking State And Local Regulations, Shaka Mitchell

Belmont Law Review

This Article will first survey the flurry of education choice activity in 2023, touching on several of the factors that drove legislation. Next, it will examine both the dispositional and practical impediments to choice reforms. This Article concludes with recommendations for modernizing local and state policy to best achieve the goals of recently enacted educational programs.

What Will Happen To Cleo In The Wave Of Affirmative Action Litigation, Erin Lain

Belmont Law Review

The Students for Fair Admission (“SFFA”) decision has upended how law schools conduct admission, changing the decades-old practices of considering race as one of many factors in the admissions process. Despite the narrow use of race in the admission process, the legal profession is still almost 81% white, suggesting the use of affirmative action has not been a substantial boost to minority enrollment in law school. Despite the low impact, the United States Supreme Court proceeded with a sweeping decision declaring the use of racial checkboxes unconstitutional and limiting the use of race in admissions to evidence of nonracial attributes …

Learning Together: Modern Developments In Education Law, Angie Sanders, Jordyn Conley, Lauren Bush

Belmont Law Review

Panel Discussion from legal practitioners discussing the various challenges and processes of working in the field of education law.

The Great "White" Way: Reconsidering Comprehensive Color-Conscious Casting Plans Through Affirmative Action, Commercial Speech, And Statutory Amendment, Jacob Franklin Greene

Belmont Law Review

This Note discusses the theatrical casting process from publishing a breakdown through audition day type outs and how this process exposes productions, theater companies, and Actor’s Equity Association (“AEA”) to potential liability. Part I provides a background on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, as these are the federal antidiscrimination laws under which a lawsuit is most likely to arise. Part II explores the language of breakdowns, defines the concept of theatrical typing, and discusses the two predominant methods the theater industry frequently utilizes in casting shows. Likewise, …

Taming The Wild West: The Time Is Near For Congress To Intervene In Name, Image, And Likeness Deals For Collegiate Athletes, Bradley Kilborn Kilborn

Belmont Law Review

This note proposes a multifaceted approach for congressional intervention in the NIL market. While there are many areas needing NIL regulation in the collegiate athletic market, the most critical area of need for NIL regulation involves the collectives and directives. These entities have formed and operated without any meaningful guardrails since the NCAA permitted student-athletes to be compensated for their NIL. Additionally, they have been able to influence recruiting both at the high school recruit level and in the collegiate athlete transfer portal.