Law Commons^™

Educational Equality For Children With Disabilities: The 2016 Term Cases, Samuel R. Bagenstos

Book Chapters

One of the most longstanding debates in educational policy pits the goal of equality against the goal of adequacy: Should we aim to guarantee that all children receive an equal education? Or simply that they all receive an adequate education? The debate is vexing in part because there are many ways to specify “equality” and “adequacy.” Are we talking about equality of inputs (which inputs?), equality of opportunity (to achieve what?), or equality of results (which results?)? Douglas Rae and his colleagues famously argued that there are no fewer than 108 structurally distinct conceptions of equality. And how do we …

The Failure Of Education Federalism, Kristi L. Bowman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Since the Great Recession of 2007–09, states have devoted even less money to public education and state courts have become even more hostile to structural reform litigation that has sought to challenge education funding and quality. Yet the current model of education federalism (dual federalism) leaves these matters largely to the states. As a result, state-level legislative inaction, executive acquiescence, and judicial abdication can combine to create a situation in which the quality of traditional public schools declines sharply. This is the case in Michigan, which is an unusually important state not only because the dynamics that are emerging in …

Saving Title Ix: Designing More Equitable And Efficient Investigation Procedures, Emma Ellman-Golan

Michigan Law Review

In 2011, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance on Title IX compliance. This guidance has resulted in the creation of investigative and adjudicatory tribunals at colleges and universities receiving federal funds to hear claims of sexual assault, harassment, and violence. OCR’s enforcement efforts are a laudable response to an epidemic of sexual violence on college campuses, but they have faced criticism from administrators, law professors, and potential members of the Trump Administration. This Note suggests ways to alter current Title IX enforcement mechanisms to placate critics and to maintain OCR enforcement as a bulwark against …

Counting Zeros: The Every Student Succeeds Act And The Testing Opt-Out Movement, Paul A. Hoversten

Michigan Law Review Online

The story begins with threatening letters. In October 2014, the U.S. Department of Education reminded Colorado’s chief state school officer that the department “ha[d], in fact, withheld Title I, Part A administrative funds . . . from a number of States for failure to comply with the assessment requirements” under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Given the occasion, the department implied, it wouldn’t hesitate to be ruthless.

Colorado could be forgiven for assuming it was authorized to craft its own policies in this arena; according to the Wall Street Journal, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represented “the …

Doe V. University Of Michigan: Free Speech On Campus 25 Years Later, Leonard M. Niehoff

Articles

I would like to use as the launching pad for my remarks today the 1989 federal district court decision in Doe v. University of Michigan. Doe is the seminal case on campus speech codes and it just recently passed its twenty-fifth anniversary. I thought this symposium would be a good occasion to look back, see where we were, assess where we are, and ask whether we have made any progress. Spoiler alert: the news is not good.