Law Commons^™

Freedom Of Religion In Public Schools In Germany And In The United States, Inke Muehlhoff

LLM Theses and Essays

Unfortunately, in terms of religions, the strict neutrality is almost impossible to reach and most countries that have adopted such a principle still face religious conflicts. However, these conflicts have shifted from armed conflicts to legal conflicts and battles of words, which offer at least a more peaceful way to fight. One major battleground for these religious conflicts concerns the role of religion in the public school system. That battleground is the subject of this thesis. The discussion of how religion should be treated in the public school system will be based on a comparison between Germany and the United …

Disability, Deference, And The Integrity Of The Academic Enterprise, Anne Proffitt Dupre

Scholarly Works

Congress has established a complex set of laws regarding the education of disabled students. This Article discusses the obligations the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act impose on schools and focuses on how courts interpreting these statutes address the decisions of educators regarding how best to educate disabled students. Professor Dupre brings to light a striking contrast between how courts regard the decisions of educators in higher education as opposed to the decisions of educators in primary and secondary schools, routinely according the former considerable deference while often …

Equal Protection Of The Laws: Recent Judicial Decisions And Their Implications For Public Educational Institutions, Anne Dupre, John Dayton

Scholarly Works

This article reviews recent judicial decisions concerning the Equal Protection Clause and provides an analysis of their implications for public educational institutions. The article begins by giving a brief historical overview of the Equal Protection Clause, its application to the states, and describes the three-tiered approach to challenges alleging government denial of equal protection of the laws. Recent applications of each tier are addressed by discussing Adarand v. Pena, Hopwood v. Texas, U.S. v. Virginia, and Romer v. Evans. The article concludes by noting that these recent cases have added to uncertainty concerning the Court’s interpretation of the Equal …

Should Students Have Constitutional Rights? Keeping Order In The Public Schools, Anne Proffitt Dupre

Scholarly Works

This Article focuses on how the Supreme Court's conception of the public school as either an institution of social reproduction or reconstruction, a conflict Professor Dupre maintains is deeply rooted in intellectual history, has affected the power that public schools have been afforded in matters of discipline and order. Professor Dupre argues that the Court -- by allowing the reconstruction model to influence its opinion for almost thirty years -- paved the way for the decline in school order and educational quality. Although Professor Dupre contends that the Court's recent repudiation of the reconstruction model in Vernonia School District 47J …

Wanted: A Strict Contractual Approach To The Private University/Student Relationship, Rebecca H. White

Scholarly Works

Institutions of higher education command and receive considerable respect in our society. An apparent corollary of this revered status is the deference accorded colleges and universities by the courts. This deferential attitude is brought into sharp focus when a contractual dispute arises between a private university and one of its students.

It is well settled that the private university/student relationship is contractual in nature. Educational contracts, however, are regarded as possessing unique features that require special consideration; a construction which preserves schools' broad discretionary powers is often viewed as essential. Thus, courts have refused to invoke a strict contractual approach …

School Desegregation -- Failure To Revamp Segregated School District Attenuates The Milliken V. Bradley Barrier To Federal Interdistrict Remedies United States V. Missouri, 515 F.2d 1365 (8th Cir.), Cert. Denied, 96 S. Ct. 374 (1975), James C. Smith

Scholarly Works

Kinloch School District, small and all-black, adjoins the predominantly white Berkeley and Ferguson-Florissant School Districts in St. Louis County, Missouri. Kinloch and Berkeley had comprised one district until 1937, when they split along racial lines. In 1971 the United States, pursuant to Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the fourteenth amendment, commenced a school desegregation action against the State of Missouri, the State and county boards of education, the three school districts, and several public officials. The district court concluded that all the defendants had unlawfully maintained Kinloch as a racially segregated school district. After reviewing …

The Principle Of Nondivisiveness And The Constitutionality Of Public Aid To Parochial Schools, C. Ronald Ellington

Scholarly Works

The establishment clause issues in the three cases now before the Supreme Court [Tilton v. Richardson, Lemon v. Kurtzman, DiCenso v. Robinison] will be explored in this article in the light of a postulate and three derivative maxims which, it is suggested, are implicit in the Court's earlier religion clause cases, particularly Walz v. Tax Commission. It is the author's view that the establishment clause intends that government no be a divisive force in matters of religion and that analysis grounded in such a premise provides the surest delineation of the interests at stake in …