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Stepping Through Grutter'S Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen L. Norton Oct 2005

Stepping Through Grutter'S Open Doors: What The University Of Michigan Affirmative Action Cases Mean For Race-Conscious Government Decisionmaking, Helen L. Norton

Faculty Scholarship

In Grutter, a majority of the Court for the first time identified an instrumental justification for race-based government decisionmaking as compelling -- specifically, a public law school’s interest in attaining a diverse student body. Grutter not only recognized the value of diversity in higher education, but left open the possibility that the Court might find similar justifications compelling as well. The switch to instrumental justifications for affirmative action appears a strategic response to the Court’s narrowing of the availability of remedial rationales. A number of thoughtful commentators, however, have reacted to this trend with concern and even dismay, questioning whether …


For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig May 2005

For Whom Does The Bell Toll: The Bell Tolls For Brown?, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

This review essay analyzes Derrick Bell's provocative new book, Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (2004). In Silent Covenants, Professor Bell reviews Brown v. Board of Education, and inquires "whether another approach than the one embraced by the Brown decision might have been more effective and less disruptive in the always-contentious racial arena." Specifically, Professor Bell joins black conservatives in critiquing what he describes as a misguided focus on achieving racial balance in schools and argues that the quality of education for minority children, in particular Blacks, would have been better today …


"Tacking Too Close To The Wind": The Challenge To Prosecution Clinics To Set Our Students On A Straight Course, Stacy Caplow Apr 2005

"Tacking Too Close To The Wind": The Challenge To Prosecution Clinics To Set Our Students On A Straight Course, Stacy Caplow

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Ten Commandments Return To School And Legal Controversy Follows Them, Leora Harpaz Apr 2005

The Ten Commandments Return To School And Legal Controversy Follows Them, Leora Harpaz

Faculty Scholarship

The United States Supreme Court confronted the issue of a classroom display of the Ten Commandments almost 25 years ago in the case of Stone v. Graham. In that case, the Court struck down a Kentucky statute that required the posting of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms. In a per curiam opinion, the Court summarily reversed a decision of the Supreme Court of Kentucky and concluded that the statute violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause because it had no secular purpose. The outcomes of recent judicial decisions considering the constitutionality of the display of the Ten Commandments …


Last Wave: The Rise Of The Contingent School District, The , Aaron J. Saiger Jan 2005

Last Wave: The Rise Of The Contingent School District, The , Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

Spurred in part by state court cases holding that states bear a constitutional duty to educate all children adequately, and making creative use of the arguments of school choice advocates, the states and other policy actors have in recent years recast the problem of deficient schooling as one of government structure rather than one of individual rights. This reorientation has contributed to a dramatic erosion of the traditional role of the local school district as the leading administrative, policymaking, and legal unit of American school government. A new, polyarchic distribution of power has arisen in place of district primacy, bearing …


Bargaining And Distribution In Special Education, Daniela Caruso Jan 2005

Bargaining And Distribution In Special Education, Daniela Caruso

Faculty Scholarship

The problem of unequal access to educational services in the US has received the attention of courts and legislators for several decades. A traditional source of inequality, increasingly addressed by scholars and law-makers, is the discrimination against students with disabilities, who were once deprived tout court of real educational opportunities.' In this field, legislative intervention has been momentous and political forces across ideological lines have converged to provide children with disabilities proper access to public learning. The reform of special education has achieved tangible results in the last thirty years and has provided children with unprecedented opportunities.


The Republic Of Choice, The Pledge Of Allegiance, The American Taliban, Pnina Lahav Jan 2005

The Republic Of Choice, The Pledge Of Allegiance, The American Taliban, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

In two important books, The Republic of Choice and The Horizontal Society, published in 1990 and 1999 respectively, Lawrence M. Friedman presents his theories of a massive social transformation which occurred in the last century. I wish to examine these theories through the prism of two cases: Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow3 and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld,4 both decided in the spring of 2004. Both Newdow and Hamdi have been at the center of public controversy for many months; each case carries many of the ingredients presented in Friedman's The Republic of Choice and The Horizontal Society. I shall …