Law Commons^™

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 …

Truancy Lawyering In Status Offense Cases: An Access To Justice Challenge, Dean Rivkin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

August 23, 2014: How To Teach Constitutional Law Now, Bruce Ledewitz

Hallowed Secularism

Blog post, “How to Teach Constitutional Law Now“ discusses politics, theology and the law in relation to religion and public life in the democratic United States of America.

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 …

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 …

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.

Technology And Client Communications: Preparing Law Students And New Lawyers To Make Choices That Comply With The Ethical Duties Of Confidentiality, Competence, And Communication, Kristin J. Hazelwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

That the use of technology has radically changed the legal profession is beyond dispute. Through technology, lawyers can now represent clients in faraway states and countries, and they can represent even local clients through a “virtual law office.” Gone are the times in which the lawyer’s choices for communicating with clients primarily involve preparing formal business letters to convey advice, holding in-person client meetings in the office, or conducting telephone calls with clients on landlines from the confines of the lawyer’s office. Not only do lawyers have choices about how to communicate with their clients, but they also frequently choose …

Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari, Volume 1 Of 2 (Petition With Appendix Pages 1a-563a). Lynch V. Alabama, 135 S. Ct. 53 (2014) (No. 13-1232), 2014 U.S. Lexis 5672, Larry T. Menefee, Edward Still, Eric Schnapper, James U. Blacksher

Court Briefs

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

(1) The district court found that several provisions of the Alabama Constitution of 1901 were adopted for the purpose of limiting the imposition on whites of property taxes that would pay for the education of black public school students. The first question presented is: Do black public school children and their parents have standing to challenge the validity under the Equal Protection Clause of state constitutional provisions adopted for the purpose of limiting the imposition on whites of property taxes that would be used to educate black public school students?

(2) In 2004 the District Judge in Knight …

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 …

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 …

A Court For The One Percent: How The Supreme Court Contributes To Economic Inequality, Michele E. Gilman

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the United States Supreme Court’s role in furthering economic inequality. The Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 not only highlighted growing income and wealth inequality in the United States, but also pointed the blame at governmental policies that favor business interests and the wealthy due to their outsized influence on politicians. Numerous economists and political scientists agree with this thesis. However, in focusing ire on the political branches and big business, these critiques have largely overlooked the role of the judiciary in fostering economic inequality. The Court’s doctrine touches each of the major causes of economic inequality, …

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

College of Law Faculty

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 …

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 …

The Kids Aren’T Alright: Rethinking The Law Student Skills Deficit, Rebecca Flanagan

Faculty Publications

This article examines empirical research on the changes in undergraduate education since the 1960’s and discusses the challenges facing law schools admitting underprepared students.

Industry Needs And Tertiary Journalism Education: Views From News Editors, Trevor Cullen, Stephen J. Tanner, Marcus O'Donnell, Kerry Green

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

This research paper discusses the findings from a 2012 Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) sponsored project that canvassed the views of news editors around Australia about the "job readiness" of tertiary educated journalism graduates. The focus of this paper is limited to responses from news editors in Western Australia. Data was collected via face to face interviews with eleven news editors in Perth, Western Australia. The editors work in print, online, broadcast and television and all of them employ journalism graduates. The aim was to assess whether the five university based journalism programs in Perth provide graduates with the …

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 …

Learning From Detroit, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

Reviews a recent book about Detroit's problems.

Truancy Lawyering In Status Offense Cases: An Access To Justice Challenge, Dean Rivkin, Brenda Mcgee

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Simulating The Litigation Experience: How Mentoring Law Students In Local Cases Can Enrich Training For The Twenty-First Century Lawyer, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Creating Teaching Champions: Taking The Graduate Teaching Experience Outside The Classroom, Jill Mcsweeney, Nayha Acharya, Giovanna Celli, Colin Jackson, Marissa Ley, Raghav V. Sampagni

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Teaching and learning (T&L) is considered an essential skill for graduate students (Rose, 2012). University T&L centres offer a range of workshops, seminars, and certificates, which allow students to engage with peers who are interested and enthusiastic about T&L and gain support for and confidence in their own teaching (Hughes, 2006). Still, there can be little opportunity for students to engage in more informal T&L dialogue within or outside of their department (Leger & Young, 2014). Through informal student feedback, the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT) at Dalhousie University identified this gap in graduate student T&L development, and created …

The Trouble With Categories: What Theory Can Teach Us About The Doctrine-Skills Divide, Linda H. Edwards

Scholarly Works

We might not need another article decrying the doctrine/skills dichotomy. That conversation seems increasingly old and tired. But like it or not, in conversations about the urgent need to reform legal education, the dichotomy’s entailments confront us at every turn. Is there something more to be said? Perhaps surprisingly, yes. We teach our students to examine language carefully, to question received categories, and to understand legal questions in light of their history and theory. Yet when we talk about the doctrine/skills divide, we seem to forget our own instruction.

This article does not exactly take sides in the typical skills …

Diverging Destinies Redux, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

My recent “where to live” conversation with a newly hired colleague yielded an unsurprising list of “possibles”: selected blocks of Mount Airy and Germantown, plus the Main Line towns of Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, Haverford, Villanova, Gladwyne, and so forth. Despite my colleague’s professed open mind about potential neighborhoods, Jenkintown — my own somewhat obscure and distinctly unfashionable (but much more affordable) suburb — drew a blank stare, as did a dozen other solidly middleclass areas I mentioned. By my calculation, there are over 400 zip codes within a thirty-mile radius of Rittenhouse Square, which is in the center of downtown …

The Socratic Method As A Pedagogical Method In Legal Education, Lowell Bautista

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

The Socratic Method has been traditionally regarded as the core of legal pedagogy. It has come to define legal education for nearly two centuries and remains a potent influence on the method of instruction found in most modern law schools around the globe. In particular, the Socratic Method is almost universally acknowledged as the defining characteristic of the American legal education system. In fact, the Socratic Method is so entrenched in modern American legal pedagogy that it has been opined that ‘a law school just isn't a law school without the Socratic method.’ In the Australian context, the suggestion that …

Partnerships In Employment Brief: Engaging Families Of Youth With Intellectual Disabilities In Systems Change Efforts, Sean Roy

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This brief will highlight the reasons why parents and families are essential partners in any systems change effort. It will describe the importance of the family’s perspective, and how their experiences should be used to shape policy recommendations. It will offer strategies on how to engage parents and families in systems change efforts, and how to promote family involvement to state-level partners.

The Ohio State University Dispute Resolution In Special Education Symposium Panel, Dean Rivkin, Erin Archerd, Esther Canty-Barnes, Ruth Colker, Robert Dinerstein, Michael Gregory, Cathy Skidmore, Mark Weber

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Ohio State University Dispute Resolution In Special Education Symposium Panel, Dean Rivkin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.