Law Commons^™

Expanding The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Schools (K-12) And The Regulation Of Cyberbullying, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In a tragic case that received international attention, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince killed herself after being bullied—both physically and online—by some of her classmates. Phoebe had moved to Massachusetts from a small town in Ireland, enrolling as a freshman at South Hadley High School. After a brief relationship with a popular boy in the senior class, the taunting by her classmates began. Some students called her an “Irish slut” and a “whore,” knocked things out of her hands, and sent her threatening texts. Some of the students used Facebook and Twitter to speak badly about her. Phoebe suffered this treatment …

The First Amendment, Equal Protection, And Felon Disenfranchisement: A New Viewpoint, Janai S. Nelson

Faculty Publications

This Article engages the equality principles of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause to reconsider the constitutionality of one of the last and most entrenched barriers to universal suffrage—felon disenfranchisement. A deeply racialized problem, felon disenfranchisement is additionally and independently a legislative judgment as to which citizen's ideas are worthy of inclusion in the electorate. Relying on a series of cases involving state interests in protecting the ballot and promoting its intelligent use, this Article demonstrates that felon disenfranchisement is open to attack under the Supreme Court's fundamental rights jurisprudence when it is motivated by a desire to …