Education Law Commons^™

Laying Siege To The Ivory Tower: Resource Allocation In Response To The Heckler's Veto On University Campuses, Macklin W. Thornton

San Diego Law Review

High in the towers of academia, the lofty ideals of free speech are tossed around with a deceptive ease. However, as legal minds grapple with heady legal doctrines, free speech has concrete consequences down at the foot of those towers. At this ivory base, the property line between the university and the community blur. Students and nonstudents assemble and deliver conflicting speech that, at times, foments violence. Molotov cocktails, gun shots, broken windows, disgruntled students. All attempts to trigger the dreaded heckler’s veto—an attempt the government has an obligation to prevent. In addition to the public relations disasters grown from …

Culture Wars On Campus: Academic Freedom, The First Amendment, And Partisan Outrage In Polarized Times, Jason M. Shepard, Kathleen B. Culver

San Diego Law Review

After a California community college professor called the election of President Donald Trump an “act of terrorism” in her classroom the week after the vote, a student-recorded viral video sparked a national conservative media firestorm. Critics said the professor should be fired for outrageous liberal bias, while supporters defended her comments as being protected by academic freedom and the First Amendment. The student, meanwhile, was suspended for his unauthorized recording while defenders decried his punishment as evidence of anti-conservative discrimination and harassment. By examining tensions between faculty and student speech rights, the use of technologies to take ideological disagreements viral …

Comparing Single-Sex And Reformed Coeducation: A Constitutional Analysis, Nancy Chi Cantalupo

San Diego Law Review

One of the most enduring educational debates of the past three decades has dealt with the legality and advisability of sex-segregated education. This debate can often look confusing, given a large number of debaters and the diversity of their perspectives and agendas. More than this diversity, however, the debate is confusing because the debate has been structured as a contest between the "innovation" of sex-segregated education and status quo coeducation. Missing from the debate is a comparison between reformed coeducation and a single-sex alternative, a comparison that is markedly more useful in determining what ought to be done about the …

Liberty Not Fully Evolved?: The Case Of Rodney Levake And The Right Of Public School Teachers To Criticize Darwinism, Francis J. Beckwith

San Diego Law Review

In 2001, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reviewed the case of Rodney LeVake, a public school teacher who sought to enhance his school

district’s required science curriculum by suggesting to students alternative viewpoints inconsistent with that curriculum. This case, LeVake v. Independent School District, should be of great interest to legal theorists. Its holding, and the reasoning on which it is based, may serve as a Socratic provocation regarding the extent to which public school teachers have constitutional academic freedom (apart from statutory requirements or permission) to voluntarily include criticisms of and alternatives to evolutionary theory.

Proposition 209 And School Desegregation Programs In California

San Diego Law Review

On November 5, 1996, California voters struck a severe blow to affirmative action by approving Proposition 209 as an amendment to the California Constitution.' Embodied as article I, section 31, the primary thrust of the initiative provides that "[t]he state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."2 While seemingly straightforward, section 31, like other constitutional imperatives or prohibitions, may be easier to enunciate as a legal principal than it is to apply …

Adequate Special Education: Do California Schools Meet The Test?

San Diego Law Review

This Comment argues that the demands for general education efficacy apply a fortiori to disabled children. This Comment further contends that while special education law based on federal statute may be insufficient to support such accountability, the California Constitution provides a legal basis without further statutory enactments. The basis is found in adequacy assurances of article IX, section 1 of the California Constitution: the Education Clause."

Educators Who Drive With No Hands: The Application Of Analytical Concepts Of Corporate Law In Certain Cases Of Educational Malpractice, Cherly L. Wade

San Diego Law Review

This Article focuses on the problem of poorly educated children and how serious misconduct of some educators goes unpunished. The Author argues that civil liability should be imposed if the educator’s actions constitute gross negligence, such as where teachers allow a student to remain in an incorrect and harmful placement. Since the judiciary does not want to intervene in such cases, the Author examines types of decisions in the corporate context in which the court will intervene. The Article explains that the judiciary should apply a form of the business judgment rule and other corporate law principles to help alleviate …