Education Law Commons^™

Education As A Right, Homelessness As A Crisis: The Displaced Futures Of American Homeless Youth, Tina Pham

Washington and Lee Law Review

Homelessness in the United States has been a humanitarian crisis affecting youth as one of its most vulnerable populations. Education is one of the few opportunities to break through this cycle of poverty. Recognizing the gap in education for homeless students and other students, Congress enacted the McKinney-Vento Act, which guarantees homeless youth educational rights to access public education. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, however, the rise of criminalizing policies, such as encampment sweeps and anticamping ordinances, threatens the success of the Act. These policies not only destabilize families, but they also leave homeless youth …

Much Ado About Critical Race Theory, Matthew Patrick Shaw

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article offers novel observation and critical intervention in the challenge to state laws which have been adopted, allegedly, to prevent the teaching of critical race theory

(CRT) in public schools. Against the trend of recent scholarship that understands these laws as curricular censorship of topical subjects and seeks to contest their validity on those grounds, this Article more accurately identifies them as pedagogical censorship: Limits on teaching methods, which raise different, potentially more dispositive questions about the states’ educational decision-making authority—questions that the U.S. Supreme Court has long sought to avoid. But exposing these so-called “anti-CRT” laws as neither …

The Misfortune Of Attending School While Black In A Fifth Circuit State, Shelley Ward Bennett

Washington and Lee Law Review

Tens of thousands of children, including disproportionate numbers of Black children, are hit in school every year. More than 50 percent of these students live in the Fifth Circuit states of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Decades of government data, including the Department of Education’s most recent reports, reveal that Black students receive alarmingly inequitable rates of corporal punishment, demonstrating this education practice to be a legal form of institutionalized racism.

This Article uniquely focuses on the archaic discipline practice’s effects on Black students in Fifth Circuit states. Fifth Circuit law addressing students’ rights in corporal punishment cases has developed into …

Can Employers Save Us From Student Loans? Credentialism, Arms Races, And Debt Forgiveness, Tammy Harel Ben Shahar, Omer Kimhi

Washington and Lee Law Review

America is drowning in student loan debt. About 45 million Americans owe the astounding sum of $1.75 trillion in outstanding student debt, and many of them default on their payments. While most agree that something must be done, attempts to alleviate the problem have met political backlash and legal challenges. In June of 2023, the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s comprehensive student loan debt forgiveness plan, and recently the administration initiated the politically contested “Saving on a Valuable Education” plan (“SAVE”). Amidst this political tug of war, this Article aims to offer a critical and nuanced analysis of …

The Resurgence Of Massive Resistance, Danielle Wingfield

Washington and Lee Law Review

“Massive Resistance” to equal access to good quality public education is resurging across the nation. First employed by segregationists in Virginia, Massive Resistance spread across the South to oppose school desegregation. This extreme push to suppress equitable education occurred most notably post-Brown. Although 2024 marked Brown’s seventieth anniversary, Massive Resistance is again surging. In fact, the last few years have witnessed increasing resistance to publicly funded education. Some areas where anti-public education resistance strategies have manifested include political rhetoric around Critical Race Theory, library censorship, and renewed parental rights debates.

To devise the most effective response to …

Defense Against The Dark Arts: The Diversity Rationale And The Failed Affirmative Defense Of Affirmative Action, Sheldon Bernard Lyke

Washington and Lee Law Review

Over the past forty years, affirmative action advocates have participated in a defensive campaign where they have admitted that affirmative action is a form of justified discrimination. This Article finds this a dangerous strategy because it allows for the practice of misguided beliefs about race and remedies for racism. When schools fail to fight the pernicious perception that affirmative action is a racial preference, they allow the bulk of society to participate in the belief that there are no other remedial justifications for affirmative action—like remedying an institution’s history of discrimination, or curing a school’s present and ongoing discrimination by …

Higher Education Redress Statutes: A Critical Analysis Of States’ Reparations In Higher Education, Christopher L. Mathis

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article introduces a novel concept, higher education redress statutes (“HERS”), to illustrate efforts that acknowledge and amend past wrongs towards African Americans. More proximally, the Article shines a probing light on the escalation of HERS in southeastern states that serve as a site for state regulation and monitoring. The Author exposes how higher education redress statutes, designed to provide relief or remedy to Black people for states’ higher education’s harm, categorically ignore groups of Black people who rightfully should also be members of the statutorily protected class. This Article queries whether legislators can expand the scope of such statutes …

The Golem In The Machine: Ferpa, Dirty Data, And Digital Distortion In The Education Record, Najarian R. Peters

Washington and Lee Law Review

Like its counterpart in the criminal justice system, dirty data—data that is inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading—in K-12 education records creates and catalyzes catastrophic life events. The presence of this data in any record suggests a lack of data integrity. The systemic problem of dirty data in education records means the data stewards of those records have failed to meet the data integrity requirements embedded in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). FERPA was designed to protect students and their education records from the negative impact of erroneous information rendered from the “private scribblings” of educators. The legislative history …

Assessing Amateurism In College Sports, Casey E. Faucon

Washington and Lee Law Review

College sports generate approximately $8 billion each year for the National C[artel] Athletic Association and its member institutions. Most of this revenue flows from lucrative television broadcasting deals, which often incorporate the right to commercialize and sell the names, images, and likenesses of college athletes. Under its current revenue scheme, student-athletes—85 percent of whom live below the poverty line—receive a share of zero. For over a century, we’ve justified this exploitative distribution scheme under a cloak of student-athlete “amateurism.” Antitrust challenges to the NCAA’s amateurism rules clash with the assumption that “amateurism” is a revered tradition and an important tenet …

The Litigation Landscape Of Fraternity And Sorority Hazing: Defenses, Evidence, And Damages, Gregory S. Parks, Elizabeth Grindell

Washington and Lee Law Review

In recent years, increasing public and media attention has focused on hazing, especially in collegiate fraternities and sororities. Whether it is because of the deaths, major injuries, or litigation, both criminal and civil, collegiate fraternities and sororities have received increased scrutiny. In this Article, we explore a range of tactical considerations that lawyers must consider—from defenses to evidentiary concerns. We also explore how damages are contemplated in the context of hazing litigation.

Flip It And Reverse It: Examining Reverse Gender Discrimination Claims Brought Under Title Ix, Courtney Joy Mcmullan

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note begins in Part II by discussing the prevalence of campus sexual assault and the ways in which Title IX is used to address it on university campuses. Part III examines reverse Title IX claims by accused students, including the various causes of action and the pleading standards required. Part III also surveys the success of reverse Title IX claims using public pressure on universities to address sexual assault to support their allegations of gender discrimination. Part IV then evaluates the way summary judgment rules and burden-shifting frameworks affect the likelihood of success for reverse Title IX claims. Finally, …

Squeezing Public Schools’ Lemons: Theorizing An Adequacy Challenge To Teacher Tenure, Peter M. Szeremeta

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

I Need A Doctor: A Critique Of Medicare Financing Of Graduate Medical Education, Stacey A. Tovino

Washington and Lee Law Review

In its broadest sense, this Article examines the complex relationship between population booms, doctor shortages, and United States government financing of graduate medical education (GME). More specifically, this Article argues that current rules governing the calculation of Medicare payments to teaching hospitals for the costs of GME are based on cost, population, and other data that are no longer relevant. As applied, these formulas discriminate in favor of the nation’s oldest teaching hospitals, located in New England and the Middle Atlantic, and against current and future teaching hospitals located in growing population centers, especially regions in the South and West. …

The Unsupportable Cost Of Variable Pricing Of Student Loans , Jonathan D. Glater

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Promise Of Plyler: Public Institutional In-State Tuition Policies For Undocumented Students And Compliance With Federal Law, Nancy B. Anderson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Risk-Based Student Loans , Michael Simkovic

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mortgaging Human Capital: Federally Funded Subprime Higher Education, Jean Braucher

Washington and Lee Law Review

The for-profit higher education sector, primarily funded by federal student aid dollars, produces both the highest debts and defaults and lowest completion rates for its students. In response, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has promulgated the Gainful Employment Rule to require for-profit colleges and universities to meet either repayment or debt-to-income benchmarks to remain eligible to receive federal Higher Education Act funding. This Article describes the business model of the career colleges and their rapid growth over the last decade, the history of proprietary school regulation, the limited remedies for overindebtedness of former students, and the tests imposed by …

Are Food Subsidies Making Our Kids Fat? Tensions Between The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act And The Farm Bill, Melissa D. Mortazavi

Washington and Lee Law Review

On December 15, 2010, President Obama signed the Healthy Hunger- Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA)1 into law. It was hailed as a bipartisan success and a significant reform of childhood nutrition policy. Indeed, on its surface the law appears to make a significant shift away from the food paradigm of the past. However, upon closer examination, it fails to unwind the tangled connections between domestic eating habits and longstanding farm subsidies. This Article breaks new ground in several ways: First, it is one of the first essays in the emerging and underexplored field of food law, a crosssection of …

Personnel Is Policy: Schools, Student Groups, And The Right To Discriminate, George B. Davis

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Getting Beyond Religion As Science: "Unstifling" Worldview Formation In American Public Education, Barry P. Mcdonald

Washington and Lee Law Review

Since ancient times, Western civilization has witnessed a great debate over a simple but profound question: From whence did we come? Two major worldviews have dominated that debate: a theistic worldview holding that we, and the world in which we live, are the purposeful product of a supernatural creator; and a materialistic worldview holding that we are the product of unintelligenta nd random naturaflo rces. This debate rose to the fore with Darwin's publication of his theory of evolution and the development of the modern scientific establishment. In America, it initially took its most conspicuous form in efforts by creationists …

Don't Get The Wrong Idea: How The Fourth Circuit Misread The Words And Spirit Of Special Education Law-And How To Fix It, Michael T. Mccarthy

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Appropriate Action," Inappropriately Defined: Amending The Equal Educational Opportunities Act Of 1974, Jessica R. Berenyi

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Academic Freedom On The Rack: Stretching Academic Freedom Beyond Its Constitutional Limits In Fair V. Rumsfeld, Rory Thomas Gray

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taking It Out Of Neutral: The Application Of Locke's Substantial Interest Test To The School Voucher Debate, Sarah Waszmer

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making Gay Straight Alliance Student Groups Curriculum-Related: A New Tactic For Schools Trying To Avoid The Equal Access Act, Brian Berkley

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Viewpoint Discrimination By Public Universities: Student Religious Organizations And Violations Of University Nondiscrimination Policie, Mark Andrew Snider

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equal Educational Opportunity By The Numbers: The Warren Court's Empirical Legacy, Michael Heise

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Who Owns Academic Freedom?: The Standard For Academic Free Speech At Public Universities, Stacy E. Smith

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Academic Freedom In Urofsky's Wake: Post September 11 Remarks On "Who Owns Academic Freedom?", Doug Rendleman

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Second Redemption?, Bradley W. Joondeph

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.