Education Law Commons^™

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

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Critical Look At How Top Colleges Are Adjudicating Sexual Assault, Tamara Rice Lave

University of Miami Law Review

This Article examines the procedural protections afforded by the top American colleges and universities. After briefly situating these policies historically, it presents original research on the procedural protections provided by the top twenty universities, top ten liberal arts colleges, and top five historically black colleges as ranked by U.S. News and World Reports. In 2015, university administrators were contacted and asked a series of questions about the rights afforded to students, including the standard of proof, right to an adjudicatory hearing, right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, right to counsel, right to silence, and right to appeal. This Article describes …

Combatting Institutional Censorship Of College Journalists: The Need For A "Tailored Public Forum" Category To Best Protect Subsidized Student Newspapers, Nicole Comparato

University of Miami Law Review

College journalists are in a unique position. On one hand, they are typical college students, attending classes and cheering on the team at all the big games. On the other, they serve as investigative journalists, revealing the university’s deepest flaws on the front page of their newspaper. These roles should not be mutually exclusive, but at an alarming rate, universities are attempting to rid themselves of bad press by censoring their own campus newspapers.

This Note argues that universities can get away with this because of the current structure of the public forum doctrine. This doctrine determines the extent to …

Triggering Tinker: Student Speech In The Age Of Cyberharassment, Ari Ezra Waldman

University of Miami Law Review

This essay challenges the common assumption that public schools have limited authority to regulate cyberbullying that originates and takes place off campus. That argument presumes a level of myopia, clarity, and literalism in the law that simply does not exist. First, even assuming it existed, a geographic requirement is an outdated creature of a pre-Internet age. Cyberbullying poses unique challenges to young people, educators, and schools not contemplated when the Court decided its student speech cases. Second, I argue that a campus presence requirement for regulating any kind of off-campus cyberspeech never really existed, so any suggestion to the contrary …

Censorship By Crying Wolf: Misclassifying Student Speech As Threats, Susan Kruth

University of Miami Law Review

Freedom of expression is at risk at colleges and universities across the country. While campus administrators employ a number of strategies to censor speech they disfavor, this piece explores the trend of justifying censorship and punishment of expression by labeling it a “threat” and citing concerns about safety. In contrast to the kind of speech the Supreme Court has defined as a “true threat,” the expression at issue in the cases discussed here poses no safety risk, comprising political commentary, jokes, and pop culture references. Its punishment both trivializes actual dangers and chills campus discourse. Accordingly, it is imperative that …

The Washington State Constitution And Charter Schools: A General And Uniform Prohibition?, Asti Gallina

Washington Law Review

In its 2015 opinion in Washington League of Women Voters v. State, the Washington State Supreme Court invalidated Initiative 1240—which authorized the creation of charter schools. The Court considered two issues on appeal: (1) that the charter schools unconstitutionally diverted common school funds to non-common schools; and (2) that the charter schools violated article IX, section 2 requiring the legislature to establish a “general and uniform system of common schools.” The Court resolved the case on the common school fund issue and did not reach the “general and uniform” challenge. In its slip opinion, the Court had included a …

Keynote Address, Justice John Paul Stevens (Ret.)

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Education Purpose Limitations, Elana Zeide

University of Miami Law Review

While student privacy has been a public issue for half a century, its contours change in response to social norms, technological capabilities, and political ideologies. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) seeks to prevent inaccurate or inappropriate information about students from being incorporated into pedagogical, academic, and employment decisionmaking. It does so by con- trolling who can access education records and, broadly, for what purposes.

New education technologies take advantage of cloud computing and big data analytics to collect and share an unprecedented amount of information about students in class- rooms. Schools rely on outside, often for-profit, entities …

Denying Certiorari In Bell V. Itawamba County School Board: A Missed Opportunity To Clarify Students’ First Amendment Rights In The Digital Age, Elizabeth A. Shaver

Brooklyn Law Review

In the last decade, the federal circuit courts have grappled with the issue whether, and to what extent, school officials constitutionally may discipline students for their off-campus electronic speech. Before 2015, three federal circuit courts had extended school authority to off-campus electronic speech by applying a vague test that allows school officials to reach far beyond the iconic “schoolhouse gate” referenced in the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District. Two other federal circuits had avoided the issue altogether by deciding the cases before them on other grounds. In 2015, the Fifth Circuit Court …

Embracing Race-Conscious College Admissions Programs: How Fisher V. University Of Texas At Austin Redefines "Affirmative Action" As A Holistic Approach To Admissions That Ensures Equal, Not Preferential, Treatment, Nancy L. Zisk

Marquette Law Review

In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the United States Supreme Court affirmed well-established Supreme Court doctrine that race may be considered when a college or university decides whom to admit and whom to reject, as long as the consideration of race is part of a narrowly tailored holistic consideration of an applicant's many distinguishing features. The Court's latest decision heralds a new way of thinking about holistic race-conscious admissions programs. Rather than considering them as "affirmative action" plans that prefer any one applicant to the disadvantage of another, they should be viewed as the Court has described …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Children’S Law Clinic At Duke Law School Advocates For Children’S Services Of Legal Aid Of North Carolina Public Schools First Nc, Jane R. Wettach, Peggy Nicholson, K. Ricky Watson Jr., Celia Pistolis, Aisha Forte, Jennifer Story, Kevin Zhao

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Qualitative Diversity: Affirmative Action's New Reframe, Eang Ngov

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Middle Class, Urban Schools, And Choice, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

It is common knowledge that middle- and upper-class parents tend to disfavor urban public schools, and often move to suburbs in order to avoid having to send their children to those schools. Thus, the condition of urban public schools contributes to suburban sprawl- that is, the movement of people and jobs from city to suburb.  This article discusses a variety of possible solutions to the unpopularity of urban schools among middle-class parents.  Part I of the Article suggests that this problem is a cause as well as a result of middle-class flight: that is, urban schools have poor reputations because …

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.

The Prisonization Of America's Public Schools, Maryam Ahranjani

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Right To Bear Arms... And Lesson Plans, Ryan Saboff

Florida A & M University Law Review

This Article will argue that due to the unique characteristics of mass school shootings, including their swiftness, unpredictability, and at times advanced planning and preparation, that American society can no longer simply rely on law enforcement to effectively stop or even prevent future acts of mass violence from occurring on our schools. Rather, legally licensed and armed teachers and school personnel are actually the most effective deterrent to mass school shootings. The primary focus of this Article will be schools kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12), as they comprise of the majority of mass shootings in the United States and typically …

The Texas Supreme Court Retreats From Protecting Texas Students, Albert Kauffman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

This Article criticizes the 2016 Texas Supreme Court school finance decision, the latest of seven decisions starting in 1989, for its disregard of both the record in the case and the realities of the Texas Constitution and Texas politics. The Article also focuses on how standards for reviewing legislation have changed and the Texas Supreme Court's irrational and unfounded retreat to the "money doesn't make a difference" theory of school finance. Finally, the Article recommends a return to an objective, comprehensible, enforceable and constitutional system of review, and concludes with a prayer for holdings that recognize the inequities of the …

Wisconsin Law In The Age Of Individualism, Joseph A. Ranney

Marquette Law Review

None

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.

A Higher Power Produces Greater Problems: How Religious Honor Codes And Religious Schools Exacerbate Campus Sexual Assault, Samuel T. Jay

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

City On A Hill: The Democratic Promise Of Higher Education, Rachel F. Moran

Faculty Scholarship

When we think about the democratic promise of higher education, we often think of public universities. Consider, for example, the civic-minded reflections of Gordon Davies, the former Chancellor of the University of Virginia, who concluded in 1997 that “[e]ducation is not a trivial business, a private good, or a discretionary expenditure. It is a deeply ethical undertaking at which we must succeed if we are to survive as a free people.” This lofty vision has since been undermined by persistent cuts in funding for state universities across the nation. In 2007, James Duderstadt, the former president of the University of …

Reforming School Discipline, Derek W. Black

Northwestern University Law Review

Public schools suspend millions of students each year, but less than ten percent of suspensions are for serious misbehavior. School leaders argue that these suspensions ensure an orderly educational environment for those students who remain. Social science demonstrates the opposite. The practice of regularly suspending students negatively affects misbehaving students as well as innocent bystanders. All things being equal, schools that manage student behavior through means other than suspension produce the highest achieving students. In this respect, the quality of education a school provides is closely connected to its discipline policies.

Reformers have largely overlooked the connection between discipline and …

From Common Core To Charter: The Economic Remedy To Nc Education, Hunter B. Winstead

Senior Honors Theses

Although numerous factors contribute to the decline of North Carolina’s economic prosperity, one of the most prevalent is the waste that occurs through the ineffective funding of education. In the last century, this system has become progressively centralized and bureaucratized which restricts the presence of diversity and hinders economic choice. The purest evidence of this movement is demonstrated through the state’s adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), an initiative designed to serve as a basis for federal entanglement in education. Proponents of CCSS claimed that the system would accomplish a variety of rigorous educational goals; however, none of …

Schwartz V. Lopez, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 73 (Sep. 29, 2016), Scott Cardenas

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) Article 11, Section 1 of the Nevada Constitution does not limit the Legislature’s discretion in encouraging other methods of education, and based on this, the Education Savings Account (“ESA”) program is not contrary to Article 11, Section 2 which requires the Legislature to “provide for a uniform system of common schools”; and that (2) the funds deposited in the education savings account are not “public funds” subject to Article 11, Section 10; and finally that (3) the ESA program violates the mandate under Section 2 and 6 to fund public education because SB 302 does …

Equal Justice Under Law - Tax Aid To Education, William J. Kenealy, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Should The State Aid Private Schools?, Robert F. Drinan, S.J.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Nevada's Education Savings Accounts: A Constitutional Analysis, Thomas W. Stewart, Brittany Walker

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

This piece will analyze potential conflicts between Senate Bill 302 and Article XI of the Nevada Constitution to explore the constitutionality of educational savings accounts.

Clarence Thomas, Fisher V. University Of Texas, And The Future Of Affirmative Action In Higher Education, Scott D. Gerber

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Real Danger Of Guns In Schools, Sonja R. West

Popular Media

This article that first appeared at Slate.com on March 22, 2016, looks at Georgia's "Campus Carry" Legislation. This legislation permits "any [firearm] license holder when he or she is in or on any building or real property owned by or leased to any public technical school, vocational school, college, university, or other institution of postsecondary education."

Sexualization, Sex Discrimination, And Public School Dress Codes, Meredith Johnson Harbach

University of Richmond Law Review

This essay joins the conversation about sexualization, sex discrimination, and public school dress codes to situate current debates within in the broader cultural and legal landscapes in which they exist. My aim is not to answer definitively the questions I pose above. Rather, I ground the controversy in these broader contexts in order to better understand the stakes and to glean insights into how schools, students, and communities might better navigate dress code debates.