Law Commons^™

Schoolhouse Rock: Lessons Of Homosexual Tolerance In Keeton V. Anderson-Wiley From The Classroom To The Constitution, Billie Pritchard

Mercer Law Review

The public educational system is charged with more than the academic success of America's youth. Educators are responsible for "nurtur[ing] students social and moral development by transmitting to them an official dogma of community values." As Keeton v. Anderson-Wiley demonstrates, community values are rapidly changing to acknowledge new constructions of homosexual identity and constitutional interests relative to historically marginalized attributes. In Keeton the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia denied a preliminary injunction to a student asserting various First Amendment claims against her university for requiring her to complete remedial training for counseling gay, lesbian, bisexual, …

Bullying In Public Schools: The Intersection Between The Student's Free Speech Rights And The School's Duty To Protect, Elizabeth M. Jaffe, Robert J. D'Agostino

Mercer Law Review

The 2009 case of eleven-year-old Jaheem Herrera's suicide in Georgia, which resulted after alleged repeated verbal bullying by his classmates, presents an interesting question regarding whether public schools must take action to prevent this type of behavior even if it does not disrupt the classroom. The issue to be addressed is not what speech schools can censor but whether schools must censor or prevent certain speech that has a harmful effect on the educational environment for a specific student or a specifically identifiable group of students.

If a public school student has a civil or liberty right to his education,' …