Law Commons^™

The Lost Promise Of Disability Rights, Claire Raj

Michigan Law Review

Children with disabilities are among the most vulnerable students in public schools. They are the most likely to be bullied, harassed, restrained, or segregated. For these and other reasons, they also have the poorest academic outcomes. Overcoming these challenges requires full use of the laws enacted to protect these students’ affirmative right to equal access and an environment free from discrimination. Yet, courts routinely deny their access to two such laws—the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (section 504).

Courts too often overlook the affirmative obligations contained in these two disability rights …

Put The Town On Notice: School District Liability And Lgbt Bullying Notification Laws, Yariv Pierce

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Congress could mitigate the problem of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) student bullying by requiring that teachers and school officials report all bullying incidents to their school district administrators. Many school districts are not aware of the prevalence of LGBT bullying and the extent to which each school protects, or fails to protect, its LGBT students compared to other harassed students. LGBT students often encounter difficulty demonstrating that their school district has a policy or custom of deliberate indifference toward their equal treatment when a school does not equally protect an LGBT student from peer-to-peer bullying because of the …

Affirmative Action & Negative Action: How Jian Li's Case Can Benefit Asian Americans, Adrian Liu

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

In October 2006, Asian American student Jian D filed a civil rights complaint against Princeton University claiming that Princeton's affirmative action policies were discriminatory. Li argues that affirmative action gives preferences to non-Asian minorities at the expense of Asian students. Li's case aligns the interests of Asian Americans with Whites who challenge affirmative action and suggests that such policies are inherently discriminatory because they exclude students based on race and sacrifice merit. This Article argues that Li's exclusion is not due to affirmative action but is likely due to "negative action," the unfavorable treatment of Asian Americans relative to Whites. …

The Death Of Section 504, Ruth Colker

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the passage of the ADA had an unexpected consequence, namely the narrowing of the rights that were understood to exist under Section 504. Section 504 covered two broad areas of the law: the law of employment for individuals employed by entities receiving federal financial assistance and the law of education for students attending primary, secondary or higher education. The effect on the law of employment, which I will discuss in Part II, has been immediate and dramatic. The effect on the law of education, discussed in Part III, cannot yet be fully documented. Recent decisions, however, …

Minority Preferences Reconsidered, Terrance Sandalow

Reviews

During the academic year 1965-66, at the height of the civil rights movement, the University of Michigan Law School faculty looked around and saw not a single African-American student. The absence of any black students was not, it should hardly need saying, attributable to a policy of purposeful exclusion. A black student graduated from the Law School as early as 1870, and in the intervening years a continuous flow of African-American students, though not a large number, had been admitted and graduated. Some went on to distinguished careers in the law.

Rejoinder (Response To Article By William G. Bowen And Derek Bok), Terrance Sandalow

Articles

In The Shape of the River, presidents Bowen and Bok pronounce the race-sensitive admission policies adopted by selective undergraduate schools a resounding success. The evidence they adduce in support of that conclusion primarily concerns the performance of African-American students in and after college. But not all African-American students in those institutions were admitted in consequence of minority preference policies. Some, perhaps many, would have been admitted under race-neutral policies. I argued at several points in my review that since these students might be expected to be academically more successful than those admitted because of their race, the evidence on which …

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act: A Parent's Perspective And Proposal For Change, Martin A. Kotler

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

For two years, beginning in the fall of 1991, I was involved in an ongoing legal battle with the Delaware County, Pennsylvania Intermediate Unit No. 25 regarding the "appropriateness" of preschool programming for my son. To a large degree, the following Article has its origin in that battle.

Nevertheless, the point of this Article is neither to get even for wrongs, real or imagined, nor to utilize these pages to supplement the already extensive briefs and formal arguments made in that case. Rather, I believe that my position as a law professor, lawyer, litigant, and parent of a disabled child …

Equity In Public Education: School-Finance Reform In Michigan, William S. Koski

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that the only adequate compromise between the pressure to limit taxes and the need to provide both educational quality and equity is to institute a form of full-state funded education. Part I of this Note briefly defines equity in public education and discusses the importance of increasing equity. Part II discusses other values and concerns that arise in the school-finance debate, such as liberty, local control, efficiency, and quality of education. Part III considers several fundamental school-finance alternatives. Part IV provides a historical overview of Michigan school finance reform and a description of the current State School …

Wilkins V. Bentley: Getting Out The Student Vote In Michigan, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The right to vote is one of the most precious constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has described it as preservative of all rights, a fundamental matter in a free and democratic society, and a bedrock of our political system. Justice Black once stated, "No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live." It supports not only the individual's personal interest in self-government, but also the collective societal interest in broadly based consensual representation. The magnitude of these …

Restrictions On Student Voting: An Unconstitutional Anachronism?, W. Perry Bullard, James A. Rice

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Using Michigan as a vehicle for analysis because it has a student voting process representative of many states, this note seeks to accomplish four purposes: (1) an examination of the case law often underlying the presumption against student registrability; (2) an analysis of recent constitutional developments in the due process and equal protection areas as they relate to the particular problems posed by the student voter; (3) a survey of the competing local and student interests in the student vote issue; and (4) a conclusion regarding the likelihood that thwarted student voters can follow the paths of other disfranchised groups …