Law Commons^™

The Role Of Lawyers In Bridging The Gap Between The Robust Federal Rights To Education And Relatively Low Education Outcomes In Guatemala, Maryam Ahranjani

Faculty Scholarship

Relative to other countries in the world and in Central America, the Guatemalan Constitution and the federal education law include a robust and detailed right to education. However, literacy rates and secondary educational attainment, particularly for Indigenous people and young women living in rural communities, remain low. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated disparities. Once children return to schools after the pandemic, the gaps will be even larger. Lawyers can play a critical role in making the strong Constitutional right to education more meaningful.

A Class Action Lawsuit For The Right To A Minimum Education In Detroit, Carter G. Phillips

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Equal Protection Supreme Court Appellate Division Third Department

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Education Reform And Detroit’S Right To Literacy Litigation, Kristine L. Bowman

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Ongoing education reform litigation arising out of Detroit, Michigan presents an innovative claim: Children have an unenumerated federal constitutional right of access to literacy. On June 29, 2018, the district court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss. The case is now on appeal to the Sixth Circuit and is expected to be argued in the first half of 2019. This litigation has already broken new ground and, regardless of the ultimate outcome, it is valuable because it invites us to revisit fundamental questions about rights, remedies, and the role of courts in education reform.

The Fortification Of Inequality: Constitutional Doctrine And The Political Economy, Kate Andrias

Articles

As Parts I and II of this Essay elaborate, the examination yields three observations of relevance to constitutional law more generally: First, judge-made constitutional doctrine, though by no means the primary cause of rising inequality, has played an important role in reinforcing and exacerbating it. Judges have acquiesced to legislatively structured economic inequality, while also restricting the ability of legislatures to remedy it. Second, while economic inequality has become a cause célèbre only in the last few years, much of the constitutional doctrine that has contributed to its flourishing is longstanding. Moreover, for several decades, even the Court’s more liberal …

Ensuring The Constitution Remains Color Blind Vs. Turning A Blind Eye To Justice: Equal Protection And Affirmative Action In University Admissions, Attashin Safari

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Federal Role In Education: Encouragement As A Guiding Philosophy For The Advancement Of Learning In America, Gerard Robinson

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legal Precedent And The Opportunity For Educational Equity: Where To Now, Colorado?, Molly A. Hunter, Kathleen J. Gebhardt

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why A Fundamental Right To A Quality Education Is Not Enough, James Wilson

Akron Law Review

This article relies upon the political and economic analysis of such great thinkers as Aristotle and Rousseau to understand and normatively evaluate constitutional caselaw in general and education cases in particular. The article’s title contains its conclusion: a judicially created right to a quality education is a laudable, but possibly counterproductive and definitely insufficient condition, for creating a humane constitutional system. The rest of society needs to do far more to protect the average citizen and worker from the ever-ravenous ruling class. All the edification in the world will not mean much if there are only a few decent jobs …

Citizenship Education And The Free Exercise Of Religion, Tyll Van Geel

Akron Law Review

Part One of this article provides a broad-brush overview of constitutional doctrine as it bears on citizenship education in the public schools. The remaining parts of the article focus on a Free Exercise challenge to the introduction of a Callaneseque program of citizenship education in a public school. Part Two thus explicates Callan’s theory. Part Three outlines my approach to the Free Exercise Clause. Part Four applies that approach to a challenge brought against a Callanesque program of citizenship education. Part Five takes up other possible rights-based limits on the education power and offers a suggestion regarding how citizenship education …

Thinking About The Constitution At The Cusp, Mark Tushnet

Akron Law Review

Marshall’s understanding that schools have an implicit curriculum might be a better guide to thinking about what we should teach about the Constitution in this century than any substantive points I might make. One controversial example may illustrate Marshall’s understanding: just as he asked what lesson would be taught by delaying desegregation, so we might ask, “What lesson will be taught about the nature of our constitutional community if we adopt a large-scale system of vouchers that parents can use to assist them in sending their children to non-public schools?” Such a system would demonstrate B and would teach our …

Education And The Constitution: Shaping Each Other & The Next Century, Elizabeth Reilly

Akron Law Review

In evaluating patients’ potential legal remedies, this Comment explores 1) the emergence of managed care organizations in the United States; 2) the creation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) and how it impacts patients’ claims against their MCOs; 3) the question of “quantity” versus “quality” in evaluating whether ERISA preemption exists; 4) three theories (direct liability, breach of fiduciary duty, and vicarious liability) used to hold MCOs liable for injuries resulting from malpractice or the wrongful denial of benefits; 5) state legislative attempts to circumvent ERISA’s inequitable preemption of claims; and 6) why, given ERISA’s failure …

The Wicked Smaht Kids: Seeking An Adequate Public Education For Gifted Elementary And Secondary Students In Massachusetts, Brenna Ferrick

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This Note argues that the Massachusetts legislature underserves highly intellectually gifted students by neither identifying nor supporting the unique needs of such a population. The legislature is both enabled by the state constitution and charged by the Education Reform Act to provide an adequate education to all elementary and secondary students. The stated intent of the Commonwealth’s education directive purports to provide every child “the opportunity to reach their full potential,” when in reality there are only statutory entitlements and procedural safeguards for those who qualify for federal mandates due to qualifying disabilities. This issue is ripe for judicial interpretation …

Constitutional Issues Surrounding Student Possession And Use Of Cell Phones In Schools, Ralph Mawdsley, Charles Russo

Charles J. Russo

Constitutional challenges to limits on the possession and/ or use of cell phones in schools present potential claims involving the Fourth Amendment rights of students to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searchesalong with parental Fourteenth Amendment Liberty Clauserights to direct the education and upbringing of their children. However, as reflected in this article, as long as educational officials enact policies in line with state laws that are explicitly designed to enhance school safety, challenges filed by students and their parents are probably destined to fail because constitutional claims are likely to be outweighed by concerns for the greater …

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 …

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 …

Nevada Public Policy And Higher Education: The Roles Of The Legislature And The Board Of Regents Under The Nevada Constitution, Thomas B. Mcaffee, Justin James Mcaffee

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Social Networking And Student Safety: Balancing Student First Amendment Rights And Disciplining Threatening Speech, John L. Hughes Iii

University of Massachusetts Law Review

As the use of social media increases and becomes an integral part of nearly every student's life, problems arise when student expression on these sites turns into threats against the school or other students, implicating both student safety and the speaker's right to free speech. Facing a lack of Supreme Court precedent, school officials need guidance on whether and how to take action when a student makes threats on social network - how to prevent any danger at school while respecting the student's right to free speech. This note develops an approach that combines the Supreme Court's Watts "true threat" …

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 …

Individual Academic Freedom: An Ordinary Concern Of The First Amendment, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Our Nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us, and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.

There is some argument that expression related to academic scholarship or classroom instruction implicates additional constitutional interests that are not fully accounted for by this Court's customary employee-speech jurisprudence. We need not, and for that reason do not, decide whether the analysis we conduct today would apply in the same …

Do California’S Teacher Tenure Laws Violate California’S Constitutional Right To Education, Allen W. Hubsch

Allen W Hubsch

The accompanying note addresses an important and topical issue. In May 2012, Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General of the United States, and Theodore Boutrous, co-chair of the appellate practice at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court, entitled Vargara v. California, naming the State of California, the California Department of Education, the Los Angeles Unified School District and others as defendants.

The complaint alleges that California’s teacher tenure statutes are unconstitutional under the California constitution because such laws have the effect of preventing school districts from providing a quality education to school age …

Do California’S Teacher Tenure Laws Violate California’S Constitutional Right To Education, Allen W. Hubsch

Allen W Hubsch

The accompanying note addresses an important and topical issue. In May 2012, Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General of the United States, and Theodore Boutrous, co-chair of the appellate practice at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court, entitled Vargara v. California, naming the State of California, the California Department of Education, the Los Angeles Unified School District and others as defendants.

The complaint alleges that California’s teacher tenure statutes are unconstitutional under the California constitution because such laws have the effect of preventing school districts from providing a quality education to school age children. …

North Carolina’S Superintendent Of Public Instruction: Defining A Constitutional Office, Andrew P. Owens

Andrew P. Owens

In 2009 a superior court case determined the fate of the Governor’s initiative to streamline education leadership by promoting a State Board of Education member while greatly reducing the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s powers. The judge’s decision in favor of Superintendent Atkinson turned on “the inherent constitutional authority” of her office; yet no one really knows what authority is inherent to the office, where that authority derives, or how to go about analyzing the office’s constitutional role. In short: what does it mean to be the Superintendent of Public Instruction? This paper explains the origins and meaning of the Superintendent …

An Analysis Of The Legal Obstacles To State Pension Reform, Jeremy Stuart Buck

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Public pension systems are underfunded, straining state budgets. Historically, many states have presumed that they can modify pension benefits only as to newly-hired employees, and that they must leave benefit accruals untouched for current workers. More recently, though, states have begun enacting more fundamental pension reform that modifies future accruals or even reduces cost-of-living allowances for retirees. Nearly all such new reforms have been the subject of one or more lawsuits alleging that the federal and/or state constitution bars the legislature from reducing benefits or accrual patterns. This dissertation examines the legal underpinnings for arguments made against pension reform, and …

Government's Denigration Of Religion: Is God The Victim Of Discrimination In Our Public Schools?, Michael R. O'Neill

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Action And The Supreme Court's Emerging Consensus On The Line Between Establishment And Private Religious Expression, Michael W. Mcconnell

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Cedar Rapids Community School District V. Garret F.: A High Price For Equal Education , Kristie Harding

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

American School Finance Litigation And The Right To Education In South Africa, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This paper addresses the South African Constitution's invitation to the Constitutional Court to 'consider foreign law' when interpreting its provisions. Focusing on the education provisions found in section 29 of the Constitution, I make two claims. Firstly, contrary to the developing consensus, American state supreme court jurisprudence in school funding cases makes a poor resource to aid the interpretation of the basic South African right to education, regardless of the quantum of education that the Constitutional Court decides is encompassed by the word 'basic'. Secondly, however, certain aspects of these same American decisions, particularly the space they provide for a …

The Education Duty, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

A constitution is an instrument of entrustment. By adopting a democratic constitution, a polity places in the hands of its elected representatives its trust that those representatives will act to pursue the ends of the polity, rather than their own ends, and that they will do so with an eye toward the effects of adopted policies. In effect, the polity entrusts lawmaking power to its legislature with the expectation that such power will be exercised with loyalty to the public and with due care for its interests. Simply put, legislatures are fiduciaries.

In this Article, I examine the nature of …

State Constitutions And Individual Rights: Conceptual Convergence In School Finance Litigation, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article begins by reviewing Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld's “fundamental conceptions” and expanding his theory to the arena of state constitutional rights, building on recent work by other scholars. From this foundation, it moves to a discussion of the sources of rights to education. The Article then examines the text of relevant state constitutional provisions, as well as the ever-changing landscape of school finance litigation, the principal vehicle through which litigants assert constitutional claims based on ostensible education rights. Next, it systematically analyzes the population of reported cases from the highest state courts to identify Hohfeldian conceptions of education rights held …