Education Law Commons^™

Real Ethical Dilemma: Professor Whistleblower And The Diary Of The Lost Job*, Terence Garrett

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

*This story is a fictionalized account of an actual event. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and the guilty. Any similarities with other persons or events are purely coincidental. A version of this paper was presented at a Roundtable discussion of the 2002 Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting, April 2002, in Chicago, IL, Roundtable Title – “Administrators, Activists, and Academics: Political Science at the Bargaining Table.” In no way, shape, or form is this essay about my current employer.

Fair And Facially Neutral Higher Educational Admissions Through Disparate Impact Analysis, Michael G. Perez

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Note proposes both remedial and instrumental justifications for applying disparate impact scrutiny to admissions policies. This Part argues that disparate impact analysis should be applied to higher education as a remedy for the disadvantage minority applicants face as a result of historic and ongoing intentional discrimination and that schools are culpable for unnecessarily utilizing admissions criteria that have this discriminatory effect. The result of applying disparate impact analysis will be admissions policies that produce diverse student bodies while remaining facially neutral with regard to race. Part II proposes that a necessity standard, unique to the higher …

Challenging The Bounds Of Education Litigation: Castaneda V. Regents And Daniel V. California, Alan E. Schoenfeld

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Note argues that by combining the normative suasion of educational finance litigation with the political imperatives manifested in affirmative action law and practice, those who seek to improve the quality of secondary education and expand access to higher education would likely effect greater change than they would working independently. Under the appropriate political and legal circumstances, access to public higher education ought to be treated as something akin to a fundamental right, the unequal distribution of which constitutes a violation of equal protection for students of color and for economically disadvantaged students. Using the Castaneda and Daniel lawsuits to …

Assessing Constitutional Challenges To University Free Speech Zones Under Public Forum Doctrine, Thomas J. Davis

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Campaign For Fiscal Equity, Inc. V. State, Oreen Chay

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Funding For Nonpublic Education: School Vouchers Initiatives, Kathleen G. Harris

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

On June 27, 2002, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the United States Supreme Court upheld Ohio's school voucher initiative, authorizing government aid for students in failing Cleveland public schools to attend, upon independent parental choice, private and parochial schools. Similar education reform initiatives may face distinct challenges in the Commonwealth. Significantly, traditional legal interpretation of Virginia constitutional provisions has been more restrictive than those of federal constitutional provisions addressing government entanglement with religion. While carefully crafted voucher initiatives aiding sectarian private schools may pass muster under the U.S. Constitution, application of the Commonwealth's constitutional requirements could warrant a different result.

Public Funding For Nonpublic Education: School Vouchers Initiatives, Kathleen G. Harris

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

On June 27, 2002, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the United States Supreme Court upheld Ohio's school voucher initiative, authorizing government aid for students in failing Cleveland public schools to attend, upon independent parental choice, private and parochial schools. Similar education reform initiatives may face distinct challenges in the Commonwealth. Significantly, traditional legal interpretation of Virginia constitutional provisions has been more restrictive than those of federal constitutional provisions addressing government entanglement with religion. While carefully crafted voucher initiatives aiding sectarian private schools may pass muster under the U.S. Constitution, application of the Commonwealth's constitutional requirements could warrant a different result.

Terminating Public School Teachers For Cause Under Minnesota Law, Christine D. Ver Ploeg

William Mitchell Law Review

It is important to understand the realities that surround the discharge of a teacher, for embarking upon this path promises to be painful for everyone involved. Teachers who challenge allegations that they are personally or professionally unworthy of continuing to teach in their districts--or perhaps to continue to teach at all--understandably experience extraordinary trauma and anxiety. By the same token, districts that ultimately fail to prove the case for discharge can face significant financial liability and may even be forced to reinstate teachers who have been found to be deficient. Finally, these efforts often divide schools and communities because teachers, …

School Accountability And ‘High Stakes’ Testing, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Disability Law And Higher Education: A Road Map For Where We've Been And Where We May Be Heading, Laura Rothstein

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Training For Justice: The Global Reach Of Clinical Legal Education, Richard J. Wilson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court And Pledge Of Allegiance: Does God Still Have A Place In American Schools?, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The dearth of statistical or anecdotal evidence aside, combined with the relative lack of reported litigation, it appears that most students and teachers regularly participate in perhaps the most common daily school ritual by joining in the patriotic recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance (Pledge) and the salute to the American Flag. Yet, as discussed throughout this article, this daily practice has had a history of controversy, whether in schools or political settings.

Turning specifically to schools, in Newdow v. United States Congress (Newdow), the Ninth Circuit set off a firestorm of controversy when, in a case from California, it …

A New Image In The Looking Glass: Faculty Mentoring, Invitational Rhetoric, And The Second-Class Status Of Women In U.S. Academia, Carlo A. Pedrioli

Faculty Scholarship

This article maintains that because Title VII alone does not have the ability to further the progress women have made in academic hiring, retention, and promotion, looking to remedies in addition to Title VII will be advantageous in helping to improve the status of women in U.S. academia. The article suggests as an additional remedy the implementation of faculty mentoring opportunities for junior female faculty members. A key way of initiating and furthering such mentoring opportunities is a type of discourse called invitational rhetoric, which is “an invitation to understanding as a means to create...relationship[s] rooted in equality, immanent value, …

The Racial Gap In Ability: From The Fifteenth Century To Grutter And Gratz, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Justice O'Connor’s opinion for the United States Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action plan. Beneficiaries of affirmative action clearly meet the necessary qualifications for admissions to selective colleges, universities, and graduate programs. But, the justifications for affirmative action articulated by Justice O'Connor implicitly recognized that underrepresented minorities with a history of discrimination are not as academically qualified as their non-Hispanic white (and Asian counterparts). Their inclusion in affirmative action plans is based on the belief that they provide enough educational and non-educational benefits to offset their academic shortcomings.

There are measurable …

The Hypothetical Opinion In Grutter V. Bollinger From The Perspective Of The Road Not Taken In Brown V. Board Of Education, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

In Defense Of Deference, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, Guy-Uriel E. Charles

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Comparing Remedies For School Desegregation And Employment Discrimination, Candace Kovacic-Fleischer

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: Ten years after the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, now a symbol of the beginning of the end of racial discrimination, Congress passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII opened the workplace to all races and women in ways that had not previously existed. While discrimination in the workplace has not disappeared in the forty years since Title VII's enactment, one sees minorities and women in a greater variety of jobs, and at higher levels, than one would have seen a generation ago. The promise of Brown, however, has not been …

Celebrating Accomplishments In Equality, Sharon Breckenridge Thomas

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

Abstract forthcoming.

Abandoning Principles: Qualified Tuition Programs And Wealth Transfer Taxation Doctrine, Wayne M. Gazur

Publications

In 1996 Congress gave its imprimatur to a modest qualified tuition program provision. Over the course of the next five years the provision was expanded, providing additional wealth transfer taxation and income taxation benefits. This essay proposes that unless limited, such benefits are inconsistent with established taxation principles and also have the potential to undermine the integrity of the wealth transfer tax structure and the progressive nature of the income tax.

The Most Rational Branch: Guinn V. Legislature And The Judiciary's Role As Helpful Arbiter Of Conflict, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

When the Nevada Supreme Court decided Guinn v. Legislature, one would have thought from reading the popular press accounts that the court had forcibly displaced the State legislature by means of a violent coup d'etat. Newspaper accounts of the decision referred to it as a usurpation of power in violation of clear constitutional language, belittling the court in language sometimes more appropriate to the baseball bleachers than to serious editorial commentary. Following suit, politicized elements of the citizenry began a recall effort (seemingly unsuccessful as of this writing) directed at the court as well as joining the chorus of criticisms. …

Vouchers, Buses, And Flats: The Persistence Of Social Segregation, Paul Boudreaux

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

God, Jesus, Allah And Yahweh Should Be Government Employees: How Zelman V. Simmons-Harris Can Establish A Constitutional Framework For Government Funding Of Faith-Based Services, Craig A. Newell Jr.

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Access To Higher Education In Florida And South Africa: A Comparative Policy Analysis, Marty Z. Khan

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines issues of access to higher education in Florida and South Africa. On November 9, 1999, the Governor of the State of Florida issued Executive Order 99-281 to establish the One Florida Initiative (OFI), which barred the use of race as a factor in university admissions. In South Africa, the government in February 2001 issued its National Plan for Higher Education (SANPHE). This plan outlined a framework to redress past inequities in the higher education system perpetuated by the former government's apartheid ideology. Senior university leaders in Florida and South Africa were required to implement their respective policy. …

Memphis Sings 'Soul' Music, Rural Does Country: School Finance Litigation In Tennessee, Lee A. Harris

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

When Equality Leaves Everyone Worse Off: The Problem Of Leveling Down In Equality Law, Deborah Brake

Articles

This Article addresses the problem of leveling down as a response to discrimination. Existing case law and legal scholarship generally assume that inequality may be remedied in one of two ways: improving the lot of the disfavored group to match that of the most favored group, or worsening the treatment of the favored group until they fare as badly as everyone else. The term "leveling down" refers to the latter response. This Article contends that courts and commentators have overstated the flexibility of equality rights in accepting leveling down as a response to inequality, and proposes a new framework that …

Legislating Accountability: Standards, Sanctions, And School District Reform , Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

The “New Accountability” movement in American education purports to catalyze improvement in American education by setting clear state standards for academic performance, measuring performance against those standards, and disseminating information about results. This Article argues that the potential of state accountability programs lies not in their imposition of standards but in their imposition of a sanction - the disestablishment of school districts, which entails unseating the local superintendent and school board and replacing them with state officials or their designees - that is extremely painful for the targeted district but is also painful for states to impose. The first Part …

Constitutional Common School, Molly O'Brien, Amanda Woodrum

Cleveland State Law Review

In this paper we turn to historical evidence as a beginning point for understanding the constitutional vision and values of the "thorough and efficient system of common schools" mandated by Article VI, Section 2 of the Ohio Constitution. In Part II, we consider the early development of public schooling in America and the complex relationship between public education and religion. The inclusion of the educational provisions in the Constitution of 1851 represented a victory for the advocates of a non-sectarian, state operated system of schools that would encourage civic participation and avoid religious indoctrination In Part II, we address efforts …

Multiracial Identity, Monoracial Authenticity & Racial Privacy: Towards An Adequate Theory Of Mulitracial Resistance, Maurice R. Dyson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article is divided into five parts. Part I briefly places the significance of the Supreme Court's affirmative action ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger in context, particularly the implications of its recommended twenty-five year timeframe in recognizing racial diversity. Part II examines the dangerous consequences of implicit assumptions underlying the RPI. More specifically, I investigate the potential ramifications the RPI would have had upon multiple sectors of our society, including healthcare, education, and law enforcement. In the process, I attempt to demonstrate that the concept of racial privacy is a strategic misnomer intended not to protect one's privacy, but rather …

Access To Public School Facilities For Religious Expression By Students, Student Groups And Community Organizations: Extending The Reach Of The Free Speech Clause, Ralph Mawdsley

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The purpose of this article is to examine how courts, in their more recent decisions, have addressed the religious speech claims of individual students, student groups, and community organizations.

School Board Control Over Education And A Teacher's Right To Privacy, Ralph Mawdsley

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Privacy as a protected right for employees in the United States is grounded in several constitutional provisions. Most generally, the notion of privacy is associated with confidentiality of information , which is protected under both the Liberty Clause of the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment and the Fourth Amendment's protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. However, an expanded understanding of privacy can find protection under the concepts of the right of association protected under the Liberty Clause and the First Amendment, expression of ideas under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, and practice of one's religious beliefs under the Free …