Law Commons^™

How Not To Criminalize Cyberbullying, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Andrea Garcia

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

This essay provides a sustained constitutional critique of the growing body of laws criminalizing cyberbullying. These laws typically proceed by either modernizing existing harassment and stalking laws or crafting new criminal offenses. Both paths are beset with First Amendment perils, which this essay illustrates through 'case studies' of selected legislative efforts. Though sympathetic to the aims of these new laws, this essay contends that reflexive criminalization in response to tragic cyberbullying incidents has led law-makers to conflate cyberbullying as a social problem with cyberbullying as a criminal problem, creating pernicious consequences. The legislative zeal to eradicate cyberbullying potentially produces disproportionate …

Recognizing Education Rights In India And The United States: All Roads Lead To The Courts?, Ashley Feasley

Pace International Law Review

The approaches of United States and India take disparate form: India has recognized the right to education and is attempting to implement the right, whereas the United States has not formally recognized the right to education itself but has acknowledged a limited right to educational opportunity, but has implemented some sort of right to education unequally by relying on the states to guarantee and implement some kind of remedy. This paper aims to evaluate the American and Indian approaches towards the right to education. Section II discusses the interrelatedness of social and economic and civil and political rights and the …

Beyond The Schoolhouse Gates: The Unprecedented Expansion Of School Surveillance Authority Under Cyberbulling Laws, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

For several years, states have grappled with the problem of cyberbullying and its sometimes devastating effects. Because cyberbullying often occurs between students, most states have understandably looked to schools to help address the problem. To that end, schools in forty-six states have the authority to intervene when students engage in cyberbullying. This solution seems all to the good unless a close examination of the cyberbullying laws and their implications is made. This Article explores some of the problematic implications of the cyberbullying laws. More specifically, it focuses on how the cyberbullying laws allow schools unprecedented surveillance authority over students. This …

The Role Of The Judiciary In The European Union's (De)Segregation Of Roma Students, Lindsey M. Green

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Educational Fiscal Policy And Its Effects On How Our Children Learn: Comparing Minnesota And Illinois, Sally Anne Stenzel

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

The study compares Illinois’ and Minnesota’s education fiscal policies. Illinois funds it’s education system mainly from the local level, whereas Minnesota funds it’s mainly from the state level. Thus, in Illinois, if there are discrepancies between household incomes in wealthier and poorer areas, the schools in wealthier areas would receive more money than those in poorer areas. Test scores are then compared. Illinois typically has lower scores than Minnesota. The conclusion is that Illinois’ policies are hindering their students’ learning, compared to Minnesota students, with some mixed results.

A Common Law Constitutionalism For The Right To Education, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article makes two claims, one descriptive and the other normative. The descriptive claim is that individual rights to education have not been realized under state constitutions because the currently dominant structure of education reform litigation prevents such realization. In state constitutional education clause claims, both pleadings and adjudication generally focus on the equality or adequacy of the system as a whole, rather than on any particular student's educational resources or attainment. The Article traces the roots of the currently dominant systemic approach, and finds these roots in federal institutional reform litigation. This systemic focus leads to a systemic, rather …

Disparate Impact, School Closures, And Parental Choice, Nicole Stelle Garnett

Journal Articles

We live in an era of parental choice. Today, forty-two states and the District of Columbia authorize charter schools, and twenty states and the District of Columbia permit students to use public funds to attend a private school. During the 2012-2013 school year, nearly 2 million children attended charter schools, and nearly 250,000 children received publicly funded scholarship to attend a private school. The expanding menu of publicly funded educational options is one (but by no means the only) factor contributing to the current, intensely controversial, waves of urban public school closures. In school-closure debates, proponents of traditional public schools …

Lessons From And For "Disabled" Students, Sharon E. Rush

Sharon E. Rush

The traditional understanding of "disabled" means to have a physical, mental, or emotional limitation. It is unfortunate that the word has negative connotations because we all have the ability to do some things and not others. An individual's disabilities, traditional or otherwise, do not diminish the person or detract from the universal tenet that all people are inherently equal and entitled to be treated with dignity. Generally, it is unproductive to compare the circumstances of one group with another for the purpose of discerning which group has it better or worse. Struggles by different groups to achieve equality have different …

Emotional Segregation: Huckleberry Finn In The Modern Classroom, Sharon E. Rush

Sharon E. Rush

This paper explores the harm of teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in public school classrooms. Such harm can be broadly described as emotional segregation, which occurs when society sanctions disrespect. To illustrate the effects of emotional segregation, this article explores the reaction Black students and parents have to the novel to that of White students and parents. White students eagerly imagine being Huck and going on his adventures. Black students, however, cannot and should not even be asked to try to imagine being Huck and betraying their racial identity. But then who are the Black students supposed to identify …

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 …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Food Allergy Research & Education, & Council Of Parent Attorneys And Advocates In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellants And Urging Reversal, T.F., A Minor By His Parents And D.F. And T.S.F., On Their Own Behalf V. Fox Chapel Area School District, Marc Charmatz, Caroline Jackson

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

The Grave Disparities In Modern Education, Segregation, And School Budgeting: A Comparison Between Brown V. Board Of Education And San Antonio Independent School District V. Rodriguez, Kristin Anne Ballenger

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Standardized Testing As Discrimination: A Reply To Dan Subotnik, Richard Delgado

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Richard Delgado replies to Dan Subotnik, Does Testing = Race Discrimination?: Ricci, the Bar Exam, the LSAT, and the Challenge to Learning, 8 U. Mass. L. Rev. 332 (2013).

Securitization Of Student Loans: A Proposal To Reform Federal Accounting, Reduce Government Risk, And Introduce Market Mechanisms As Indicators Of Quality Education, Robert Proudfoot

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This Article outlines looming budgetary and accounting issues with federal student loans and proposes securitization as an innovative mechanism to reform federal accounting, reduce federal balance sheet risk, and provide a new education quality indicator. The current federal loan program is unsustainable because it overestimates the repayment rates and underestimates the cost of certain loan programs. Securitization will reduce that federal risk. Additionally, by forcing academic institutions to bear some of the risk, securitization will create a neutral pricing mechanism outside the direct control of federal regulators to show whether academic institutions provide a quality education. While complicated, this proposal …

Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Scott R. Bauries, Sheldon H. Nahmod, Paul M. Secunda, Joshua D. Branson

Law Faculty Advocacy

Amici curiae respectfully submit this brief in support of Petitioner, Edward Lane, encouraging the reversal of the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit, because the judgment below is inconsistent with both the Court’s general historical approach to public employee speech and the specific approach to such speech that the Court adopted in Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2006).

Amici are law professors who teach and write about the constitutional rights of public employees and have published a number of scholarly articles on these topics. Amici have no financial stake in the outcome of this case, and in this brief …

Today's Children, Tomorrow's Protectors: Purpose And Process For Peer Mediation In K-12 Education, Raija Churchill

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article offers information on the evolution, development, and role for peer mediation programs (PMPs) in K-12 education (kindergarden-12th class education), which acts as a dispute resolution tool that provides training to students assisting in mediation of conflicts in their schools in the U.S. It examines the effectiveness of the PMPs' for training students related to achievement of educators' goal to derive safety in the U.S. schools.

Brief Amicus Curiae Of The Honorable Margaret W. Hassan Governor Of The State Of New Hampshire In Support Of The Plaintiffs/Cross-Appellants, Lucy C. Hodder, John M. Greabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The Governor confines her argument in this amicus brief to whether the superior court correctly concluded that the education tax credit program enacted under RSA § 77-G violates Article 83 insofar as it permits organizations authorized to receive donations subsidized by the credit to use those donations to fund student scholarships to religious, non-public schools. In the Governor’s view, the superior court’s finding of unconstitutionality was correct.

In its text, structure, and history (including its interpretive history), the New Hampshire Constitution significantly differs from the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause with respect to the question whether revenue generated …

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …

In Defense Of Idea Due Process, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Due Process hearing rights under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are under attack. A major professional group and several academic commentators charge that the hearings system advantages middle class parents, that it is expensive, that it is futile, and that it is unmanageable. Some critics would abandon individual rights to a hearing and review in favor of bureaucratic enforcement or administrative mechanisms that do not include the right to an individual hearing before a neutral decision maker. This Article defends the right to a due process hearing. It contends that some criticisms of hearing rights are simply erroneous, and …

Idea Class Actions After Wal-Mart V. Dukes, Mark C. Weber

Mark C. Weber

Wal-Mart v. Dukes overturned the certification of a class of a million and a half female employees alleging sex discrimination in Wal-Mart’s salary and promotion decisions. The Supreme Court ruled that the case did not satisfy the requirement that a class have a common question of law or fact, and said that the remedy sought was not the type of relief available under the portion of the class action rule permitting mandatory class actions. Over the last two years, courts have struggled with how to apply the ruling, especially how to apply it beyond its immediate context of employment discrimination …

Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom: The Failure Of The Courts To Recognize Students' Severe Emotional Harm As Unconstitutional, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

Sometimes the very people who are supposed to teach, nurture, and protect students in public schools — the students’ teachers, principals, coaches, and other school officials — are instead the people who harm them. Public school officials have beaten students, causing significant physical harm. They have also left students suffering from depression, suicidal ideation, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When school officials cause such severe harm to students, all the federal courts of appeals to consider the issue have concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment at least in theory protects them, regardless of whether the form of the harm is emotional or …

Still Unconstitutional: Our Nation's Experiment With State-Sponsored Sex Segregation In Education, David S. Cohen, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

Since federal regulations authorized single-sex education in 2006, there has been an explosion of single-sex schools and classes. Although the Supreme Court has not ruled, three federal court decisions have addressed the constitutionality of single-sex classes, and the issue will percolate toward Supreme Court review soon. The arguments are that parents should have choices and “diversity” of educational options, that “brain research” shows that boys and girls are so biologically different to need sex-specific educational environments, that educational outcomes are better, and single-sex learning environments allows boys and girls to break through gender stereotypes. This article dissects these arguments within …

Mismatch And The Empirical Scholars Brief, Richard Sander

Valparaiso University Law Review

No abstract provided.