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 …

From Louisville To Liddell: Schools, Rhetorical Neutrality, And The Post-Racial Equal Protection Clause, Cedric Merlin Powell

Cedric M. Powell

As we commemorate the inspiring legacy of Minnie Liddell and countless liberation activists who struggled for substantive equality in education for generations, it is appropriate to reflect on the current state and future of urban education. The school desegregation (integration) movements in Louisville, Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri can best be understood as two distinct permutations of the Process Theory. In Louisville, the process-orientation tilts toward individual choice—neighborhood schools are at the core of all of the discussions about student assignment plans. Conversely, in St. Louis, the seminal process initiative is charter schools. Neither processual outcome addresses the present day …

Awaiting The Rebirth Of An Icon: Brown V. Board Of Education, R. Lawrence Purdy

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

School Desegregation 2.0: What Is Required To Finally Integrate America's Public Schools, Jim Hilbert

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Fifty years after the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education, black comedian and philanthropist Dr. Bill Cosby astonished guests at a gala in Washington, D.C., when he stated, "'Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem. (Black people] have got to take the neighborhood back . . . . (Lower economic Blacks] are standing on the comer and they can't speak English.'" Cosby, one of the wealthiest men in the United States, complained about "lower economic" Blacks "not holding up their end in this deal." He then asked the question, "'Well, Brown versus Board …

From Mainstreaming To Marginalization? Idea's De Facto Segregation Consequences And Prospects For Restoring Equity In Special Education, Kerrigan O'Malley

Law Student Publications

As a basic construct for recommending measures to correct the prevailing inequities in special education, this comment examines the de facto segregation impact IDEA stemming from the Supreme Court's interpretive rulings and from the Act's own enforcement norms. The analysis further identifies the equality compromising consequences of specific IDEA provisions and considers prospects for restoring equity to special needs service delivery in these areas, with a particular focus on tuition reimbursement for private school. Respecting the historical alignment of the law of race discrimination in education and the law of disability education rights, the analysis identifies inequities that prevail at …

Parents Involved And The Struggle For Historical Memory­, Mark Tushnet

Indiana Law Journal

In his Jerome Hall Lecture, Professor Tushnet addresses the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education in the more recent case of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1 (PICS), which struck down the voluntary school integration programs used in Seattle and Louisville. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote, an important “debate” in the PICS case was over “which side is more faithful to the heritage” of Brown v. Board of Education. That debate is part of what historians have called the struggle for historical memory. The politics of memory in PICS is not simply a struggle …

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

Michael Heise

No abstract provided.

Judicial Decision-Making, Social Science Evidence, And Equal Educational Opportunity: Uneasy Relations And Uncertain Futures, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

No abstract provided.

Equal Educational Opportunity By The Numbers: The Warren Court's Empirical Legacy, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

By drawing upon empirical social science evidence to inform a core tenet of the Court's understanding of equal education the Warren Court established one of its enduring - if under-appreciated - legacies: The increased empiricization of the equal educational opportunity doctrine. All three major subsequent legal efforts to restructure public schools and equalize educational opportunities among students - post-Brown school desegregation, finance, and choice litigation - evidence an increasingly empiricized equal educational opportunity doctrine. If my central claim is correct, it becomes important to consider the consequences of this development. I consider two in this Article and find both benefits …

Assessing The Efficacy Of School Desegregation, Michael Heise

Michael Heise

No abstract provided.

The Ironies Of Affirmative Action, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

All Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s most recent confrontation with race-based affirmative action, Fisher v. University of Texas, did not live up to people’s expectations—or their fears. The Court did not explicitly change the current approach in any substantial way. It did, however, signal that it wants race-based affirmative action to be subject to real strict scrutiny, not the watered-down version featured in Grutter v. Bollinger. That is a significant signal, because under real strict scrutiny, almost all race-based affirmative action programs are likely unconstitutional. This is especially true given the conceptual framework the Court has created for such programs—the way …

Turnaround In Reverse: Brown, School Improvement Grants, And The Legacy Of Educational Opportunity, Natasha M. Wilson, Robert N. Strassfeld

Cleveland State Law Review

As we reflect upon the sixtieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, it is critical to not only assess policies advanced during the Obama administration that are aimed at reducing the continuing disparity for minority and economically disadvantaged students, but to also reflect upon what Secretary Duncan called the paradox of educational progress that continues to persist. Part II explores the effort to realize Brown’s promise of integration and equal educational opportunity. It describes a slow but significant history of gains, which has since been thwarted as Brown has been rendered doctrinally impotent. It then considers the relationship …

"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 …

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 …

The Heart Of Equal Protection: Education And Race, Sharon E. Rush

Sharon E. Rush

Brown vs. Board of Education established more than the unconstitutionality of the separate but equal doctrine in public education. Brown also gave the importance of education a constitutional dimension. Involuntary racial segregation creates a stigma wherever it exists which indisputably affects all children's self-esteem by possibly undermining that of children of color and by artificially inflating that of White children. Unfortunately, more recent cases that raise questions about the right to a public education seem less willing to acknowledge the importance of education and the importance of integration in public education. Since Brown, the Court has held repeatedly that education …

Universities As Constitutional Law Makers (And Other Hidden Actors In Our Constitutional Orders), Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

In the stories told by opinion makers and many law professors, American constitutional law is concerned with two things-individual rights and the powers of government-and it is settled by the Court, which was established by Article III of our national Constitution. In those now-familiar tales, the United States Supreme Court creates constitutional law when heroic individuals assert their fundamental rights against an overreaching state and when Congress, state legislatures, and executive agencies are called upon to justify their expert enactments to an overreaching judiciary. To settle these constitutional disputes the Court looks either to the text of the written Constitution …

Constitutional Law—School Integration Reform—A Call For Desegregation Policies That Are More Than Skin Deep, Nikki L. Cox

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is The Antidiscrimination Project Being Ended?, Michael J. Zimmer

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Freedom From Ignorance: The International Duty To Provide Public Education, Areto A. Imoukhuede

Faculty Scholarship

This paper argues that public education is an international human right that the U.S. ought to recognise and protect. Recognising a right to public education would correct a major inconsistency in U.S. law by bringing education rights docrtine more in line with international human rights law. This piece discusses how current U.S. education rights doctrine is inconsistent with U.S. tradition and legal precedent. It then demonstrates how international law recognises public education as a fundamental duty of government before arguing for why the U.S. is obligated to follow international law regarding the right to public education.

Rights And Wrongs In The Debate Over Single-Sex Schooling, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In September 2011 an article entitled The Pseudoscience of Single-Sex Schooling appeared in the journal Science. Unlike articles typically published in peer-reviewed journals, the primary intent in this case was not to inform the scholarly community but rather to accomplish larger political and legal ends. Co-authored by eight prominent psychologists and neuroscientists, it immediately made the front pages of national newspapers and soon took the international media by storm. From the United Kingdom to Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, it gave rise to a global debate about the pros and cons of single-sex schooling.

As directly …

The Thirteenth Amendment And Interest Convergence, William M. Carter Jr.

Articles

The Thirteenth Amendment was intended to eliminate the institution of slavery and to eliminate the legacy of slavery. Having accomplished the former, the Amendment has only rarely been extended to the latter. The Thirteenth Amendment’s great promise therefore remains unrealized.

This Article explores the gap between the Thirteenth Amendment’s promise and its implementation. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, this Article argues that the relative underdevelopment of Thirteenth Amendment doctrine is due in part to a lack of perceived interest convergence in eliminating what the Amendment’s Framers called the “badges and incidents of slavery.” The theory of interest convergence, in its …

Judicial Decision-Making, Social Science Evidence, And Equal Educational Opportunity: Uneasy Relations And Uncertain Futures, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From Pedagogical Sociology To Constitutional Adjudication: The Meaning Of Desegregation In Social Science Research And Law, Anne Richardson Oakes

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In the United States following the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) federal judges with responsibility for public school desegregation but no expertise in education or schools management appointed experts from the social sciences to act as court advisors. In Boston, MA, educational sociologists helped Judge W. Arthur Garrity design a plan with educational enhancement at its heart, but the educational outcomes were marginalized by a desegregation jurisprudence conceptualized in terms of race rather than education. This Article explores the frustration of outcomes in Boston by reference to the differing conceptualizations of desegregation in law and social science. …

The Little Rock School District's Quest For Unitary Status, Honorable Robert L. Brown

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

This essay discusses the major judicial benchmarks affecting the Little Rock School District since Brown v. Board of Education, andl additionally touches on attitudinal stumbling blocks between the races where problems continue to arise and where suspicions run deep.

After some forty years of litigation the Little Rock School District has been declared unitary in all respects by the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. There are judicial benchmarks since Brown and three cases bear mentioning. The initial focus of the essay is on the unitary-status decisions handed down by the Federal District Court, and specifically by …

History Of The Alternative Desegregation Plan And The Black Community's Perspective And Reaction, Johanna Miller Lewis

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Footnote Eleven For The New Millennium: Ecological Perspective Arguments In Support Of Compelling Interest, Malik Edwards

Seattle University Law Review

This Article proceeds in three Parts. Part II considers the historical and social context that led to the ultimate successful strategy in Brown. Although times may have changed, my ultimate argument is that contexts matters; as such, to fully understand Brown, we must understand the strategy behind it and the road that takes us from Plessy to Brown<,/em>. Part III considers the trends that led to Brown's undoing. While Brown I offers no remedy and Brown II provides that schools should be desegregated “with all deliberate speed,” one must understand the societal shifts that occurred, fundamentally changing the …

Parents Involved And The Meaning Of Brown: An Old Debate Renewed, Jonathon L. Entin

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines some of the jurisprudential roots of the racial discrimination debate, tracing the issue back to Brown and its immediate aftermath but finding the seeds of the disagreement in the ambiguities of the first Justice Harlan's celebrated dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson. The tensions between the two approaches did not matter in Plessy because segregation was impermissible under either theory, but the two approaches pointed in opposite directions in Parents Involved. Part II offers an overview of the Seattle and Louisville policies that were struck down in Parents Involved. Part III examines the various …

Reflections On Justice Kennedy's Opinion In Parents Involved: Why Fifty Years Of Experience Shows Kennedy Is Right, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

A Thousand Humiliations: What Brown Could Not Do., Bryan L. Adamson

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

While Brown v. Board of Education sought to integrate the public school system, fifty years later many public schools remain racially identifiable. African American and Latino students attend schools which are overwhelmingly comprised of minorities. Some racially isolated schools even experienced a rise in their minority student population after the decision in Brown. While the decision narrowed racial disparities in schools, such disparities remain distressing. Data shows a large disparity in the number of higher educational degrees earned by African American and White individuals. Additionally, wage earnings of African Americans are significantly smaller compared to White wage earnings. Educational outcomes …