Education Law Commons^™

“Pick”Ering The Speech Rights Of Public School Teachers: Arguing For A Movement By Courts Toward The Hazelwood-Tinker Standard Under The First Amendment, Heather P. Bennett

ExpressO

This Note addresses freedom of speech issues facing the nation's public schools, concentrating on the recent decision by the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lee v. York County School Division, for the final paper in my First Amendment course. Ultimately, this Note analyzes the court’s decision in this case and both standards set forth by the Supreme Court in dealing with free speech rights in the field of public education, which are currently creating a circuit split between the Courts of Appeals. The Note argues that the Hazelwood-Tinker standard applied to student speech should be the general …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Parents Involved & Meredith: A Prediction Regarding The (Un)Constitutionality Of Race-Conscious Student Assignment Plans, Eboni S. Nelson

ExpressO

During the October 2006 Term, the United States Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of voluntary race-conscious student assignment plans as employed in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1 and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education. These cases will mark the Court’s first inquiry regarding the use of race to combat de facto segregation in public education. This article examines the constitutionality of such plans and provides a prediction regarding the Court’s decisions.

The article begins with an analysis of the resegregation trend currently plaguing American educational institutions and identifies two causes for the occurrence: …

Social Reproduction And Religious Reproduction: A Democratic-Communitarian Analysis Of The Yoder Problem, Josh Chafetz

ExpressO

In 1972, Wisconsin v. Yoder presented the Supreme Court with a sharp clash between the state's interest in social reproduction through education -- that is, society's interest in using the educational system to perpetuate its collective way of life among the next generation -- and the parents' interest in religious reproduction -- that is, their interest in passing their religious beliefs on to their children. This Article will take up the challenge of that clash, a clash which continues to be central to current debates over issues like intelligent design in the classroom. This Article engages with the competing theories …

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Lawrence V. Texas Overrules San Antonio School District. V. Rodriguez, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez used the scrutiny regime to decide whether there was an Equal Protection right to housing. However, Lawrence v. Texas abolished the scrutiny regime. So how do we evaluate whether there is an education right under Equal Protection? The right to education in the Texas Constitution shows us that we use the liberty Equal Protection right to determine if state laws are essential to education; this is the meaning of Lawrence's rule that laws are not permitted respecting liberty which do not "substantially further a legitimate state interest." Note that this takes substantially from intermediate …

Finding New Constitutional Rights Through The Supreme Court’S Evolving “Government Purpose” Test Under Minimum Scrutiny, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

By now we all are familiar with the litany of cases which refused to find elevated scrutiny for so-called “affirmative” or “social” rights such as education, welfare or housing: Lindsey v. Normet, San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez, Dandridge v. Williams, DeShaney v. Winnebago County. There didn’t seem to be anything in minimum scrutiny which could protect such facts as education or housing, from government action. However, unobtrusively and over the years, the Supreme Court has clarified and articulated one aspect of minimum scrutiny which holds promise for vindicating facts. You will recall that under minimum scrutiny government’s action is …

The Constitutionality Of Utah's 2005 Tuition Tax Credit Proposals, Sean W. Mullaney

ExpressO

The issue of tuition tax credits for private and religious elementary and secondary schools remains a hot button political and legal issue. While the Supreme Court’s decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris provided some new parameters on the validity of school choice programs, it certainly did not end both the political and legal debate. In Utah, school choice programs have yet to pass, and come up every winter in the State Legislature.

My Comment analyses the 2005 tuition tax credit proposals through two Constitutional frameworks: the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause. Traditionally, the Supreme Court has analyzed school choice …

Finding The Constitutional Right To Education In San Antonio School District V. Rodriguez, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court abolished the scrutiny regime because it impermissibly interfered with an important fact, liberty. And yet, even in earlier cases which ostensibly upheld the scrutiny regime, it is difficult to see that the Court ever did so to the detriment of facts it considered important. In short, the Court often (always?) found itself raising the level of scrutiny for a fact in the same case it upheld the regime, leaving us to wonder if the scrutiny regime ever actually had any effect at all, or even whether the Court felt it was relevant. As …

Considering Standing, Sincerity, And Antidiscrimination, Chapin C. Cody

Working Paper Series

This Article will establish that an unrecognized norm, the “norm of sincerity,” is an implicit factor in the standing analysis in a certain class of equal protection cases. That class of cases includes equal protection claims where 1) courts have applied the “able and ready to compete” test to determine a plaintiff’s injury in fact, and where 2) the plaintiff has complained about discriminatory access to limited government resources. In those cases, a plaintiff cannot demonstrate injury in fact sufficient to meet Article III standing unless she shows that she sincerely intends to use the benefits at stake in the …

Fuck, Christopher M. Fairman

ExpressO

This Article is as simple and provocative as its title suggests: it explores the legal implications of the word fuck. The intersection of the word fuck and the law is examined in four major areas: First Amendment, broadcast regulation, sexual harassment, and education. The legal implications from the use of fuck vary greatly with the context. To fully understand the legal power of fuck, the nonlegal sources of its power are tapped. Drawing upon the research of etymologists, linguists, lexicographers, psychoanalysts, and other social scientists, the visceral reaction to fuck can be explained by cultural taboo. Fuck is a taboo …

An Analysis Of The Contemporary Role Of Social Science In The Law: The Case Of Race Conscious Admissions, Crystal R. Gafford Muhammad

ExpressO

The present inquiry focuses on the role of social science evidence contemporarily, using observations from judicial opinions in race conscious admissions cases. Using a set of judicial opinions from K-12 voluntary desegregation and higher education affirmative action in admissions, I use legal and statistical analysis to argue that social science data presented into evidence does not affect the outcomes of court cases involving normative subject matters, such as those involving race. I find judicial political affiliation to be the greatest predictor of opinions in this area of law. However, the question is not whether social science evidence is influential or …

Vouchers For Sectarian Schools After Zelman: Will The First Circuit Expose Anti-Catholic Bigotry In The Massachusetts Constitution?, Richard Fossey, Robert Leblanc

ExpressO

In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that an Ohio voucher program for Cleveland school children does not violate the Establishment Clause even though the program allows participation by sectarian schools. Within days after the Supreme Court released its decision, many of public education’s advocacy groups publicly expressed disappointment in Zelman’s outcome.

Although Zelman settled federal constitutional questions about vouchers, voucher opponents continued fighting in the courts. Much of this post-Zelman litigation involved arguments about the legality of various state constitutional bans against public aid for sectarian education. Scholars have shown that some of these state constitutional provisions—the …

The Political Economy Of Education Federalism, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The No Child Left Behind Act represents the federal government's most significant foray into the nation's elementary and secondary public school policymaking terrain. Although the Act undertakes unassailable policy goals, its critics argue that it represents an unwarranted federal intrusion into education policymaking, generates unintended policy consequences, and amounts to an unfunded federal mandate. Constitutionalists dwell on the Act's threat to structural federalism as it plausibly strains Congress's conditional spending authority. The coercive force that federal education funds exert on local school districts and states attracts particular attention. The No Child Left Behind Act, however, safely navigates through an even …

The Cost Of Good Intentions: Why The Supreme Court's Decision Upholding Affirmative Action Admission Programs Is Detrimental To The Cause, Leslie Yalof Garfield

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article provides an overview of the Federal Courts’ interpretation of equal protection challenges to affirmative action admission policies beginning with University of California v. Bakke through the recent Supreme Court decisions of Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. The article then identifies and outlines the appropriate elements of a constitutionally sound affirmative action admission policy. Finally, the article concludes that the permissible policy is almost unattainable for schools other than small institutions.

Grutter At Work: A Title Vii Critique Of Constitutional Affirmative Action, Jessica Bulman-Pozen

Faculty Scholarship

This Note argues that Title VII doctrine both illuminates internal contradictions of Grutter v. Bollinger and provides a framework for reading the opinion. Grutter's diversity rationale is a broad endorsement of integration that hinges on the quantitative concept of critical mass, but the opinion's narrow-tailoring discussion instead points to a model of racial difference that champions subjective decisionmaking and threatens to jettison numerical accountability. Title VII doctrine supports a reading of Grutter that privileges a view of diversity as integration and therefore cautions against the opinion's conception of narrow tailoring. Grutter, in turn, can productively inform employment discrimination law. The …

Seeing Government Purpose Through The Objective Observer's Eyes: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Debates, Kristi L. Bowman

ExpressO

In October, 2004, the Dover, Pennsylvania School District became the first in the nation to adopt a policy requiring students studying evolution to be told about the concept of intelligent design. Soon thereafter, parents filed a lawsuit challenging the policy as violating the Establishment Clause. But, Establishment Clause doctrine is one of the most splintered, incoherent areas of the Court’s jurisprudence—and even more so after the Court’s June 2005 McCreary County v. Kentucky decision. Read strictly, McCreary County imports the effects-endorsement “objective observer” into the government purpose inquiry. This subtle shift has significant ramifications: McCreary County changes the nature of …

Through The Looking Glass: Judicial Deference To Academic Decision Makers, The Conflict In Higher Education Between Fundamental Program Requirements And Reasonable Accommodations Under Section 504 Of The Rehabilitation Act And The Americans With Disabilities Act., Douglas Rush

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Rules Of The Game: "Play In The Joints" Between The Religion Clauses, Sharon Keller

ExpressO

This article uses the case of Locke v. Davey as an exemplar of the new Establishment clause jurisprudence which has opened the door for greater governmental support of sectarian schools and enterprises. What I believe has not been truly appreciated is that the rhetorical approach that fostered the change, if followed consistently, should increase the government’s burden in justifying pressures or sacrifices of personal rights such as Joshua Davey faced in the exemplar case.

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Disability Integration Presumption: Thirty Years Later, Ruth Colker

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

The fiftieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision has spurred a lively debate about the merits of “integration.” This article brings that debate to a new context – the integration presumption under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The IDEA has contained an “integration presumption” for more than thirty years under which school districts should presumptively educate disabled children with children who are not disabled in a fully inclusive educational environment. This article traces the history of this presumption and argues that it was borrowed from the racial civil rights movement without any empirical justification. In …

True Integration: Advancing Brown's Goal Of Educational Equity In The Wake Of Grutter, Lia Epperson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Rules Of The Game: The "Play In The Joints" Between The Religion Clauses, Sharon Keller

ExpressO

Locke v. Davey is an exemplar of the new generation of Establishment clause cases that, particularly in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, have written into law a safe harbor, private choice, for governmental benefits that find their way into the coffers of religious institutions in amounts that are neither incidental nor trivial. In Locke the options presented in the private choice arguably infringed upon Free Exercise rights-- the dilemma that gives rise to the title of this article. Over the vigorous dissent of Justice Scalia, the Locke Court’s analysis of the permissibility of the conditioned benefit was based upon the argument that …

Towards An Establishment Clause Theory Of Race-Based Allocation After Grutter: Administering Race-Conscious Financial Aid, Maurice R. Dyson

ExpressO

The novel application of the Establishment Clause doctrine by way of analogy to race0based financial aid after Grutter and Grats, while not identical, speaks to real issue of neutrality that is implicit in the debate of administering race-based scholarships that should be truthfully acknowledged. There is no concern about improper university indoctrination of race as the Grutter court has already established race-based diversity as worthy of a compelling state interest. Moreover, there is no concern that a college or university would establish an imprimatur on race-based scholarships merely or solely because it identifies potential candidates meeting specified eligibility criteria which …

A State's Power To Enter Into A Consent Decree That Violates State Law Provisions: What "Findings" Of A Federal Violation Are Sufficient To Justify A Consent Decree That Trumps State Law?, David W. Swift

ExpressO

In the last forty years federal courts have played a prominent role in reshaping our public institutions. And while some scholars question the efficacy of these structural injuctions, the authority of federal courts to order such relief is generally unquestioned. What is open to debate, however, is whether state officials can agree to a remedy they would not have had the authority to order themselves; and if so, to what extent must an underlying constitutional violation be proved so as to justify the remedy?

This article discusses the competing theories and concludes that a remedy that violates state law may …

Abstinence-Only Adolescent Education: Ineffective, Unpopular And Unconstitutional, James J. Mcgrath

ExpressO

This article examines the recent changes in the funding of “abstinence only” educational programs that attempt to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Although funding for these programs was previously ruled to be facially constitutional, this is no longer the case as their lack of efficacy for their stated purpose has been exposed. Newer programs are in direct violation of unconstitutional conditions doctrine, and none of these programs address a significant segment of the student population, lesbian and gay students. My article addresses this oversight as dangerous public health policy as well as a potential constitutional …

Free? Exercise, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court 2000 Term--Leading Cases, Good News Club V. Milford Central School, 121 S. Ct. 2093 (2001), Emily Gold Waldman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

After the Supreme Court held in Widmar v. Vincent that state universities could not constitutionally deny religious groups access to facilities generally available to student groups, a number of school districts authored access policies that were designed to create “limited public forums.” These policies delineated the categories of activities for which school property could be used, and indicated that religious activities were not among them. In Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, however, the Supreme Court struck a blow to the notion that school districts could employ the limited public forum approach to exclude religious activities from …

City Of Boerne V. Flores: A Landmark For Structural Analysis, Marci A. Hamilton

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Promise Of State Constitutionalism: Can It Be Fulfilled In Shef V. O'Neill?, Gayl S. Westerman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article reflects on the anomaly of the superior court's decision in Sheff in light of this recent history and recommends that the Connecticut Supreme Court use an alternative, analytical framework based on the Connecticut Constitution to decide the Sheff appeal. This independent approach is equally available to all state courts seeking to resolve fundamental issues under their own constitutions. Only by speaking in a clear, state voice can state courts balance the constitutional vision of the federal courts and fulfill the promise of the state constitutional law movement.