Education Law Commons^™

Protecting Diversity In The Ivory Tower With Liability Rules, Ting Wang

Pace Law Review

The two sides of the debate over race-based affirmative action in higher education tell two distinct stories – one of diversity’s benefits and the other of affirmative action’s burdens. In Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), the Supreme Court found the benefits to be so compelling to society that they were deemed to outweigh the burdens. Voters in Michigan and other states found otherwise and the Court in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 572 U.S. — (2014) upheld their right to ban race-conscious admissions. Paradoxically, since the use of race as a “plus factor” by selective universities …

Bills, Bills, Bills: The Effect Of A Rejected Settlement On Attorney's Fees Under The Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act Of 1976, Melissa Ibrahim

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transportation For Students With Disabilities, Charles J. Russo, Allan G. Osborne Jr.

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Transportation and other related services for students with disabilities are essential, and the costs associated with their delivery can weigh heavily on district budgets and the minds of school business officials.

School districts typically offer transportation to students with disabilities in district-owned and -operated vehicles, in vehicles owned and operated by private service providers, or via public transportation; occasionally, districts may enter into contracts with parents to transport their children to school. When students are unable to access the standard modes of transportation, school officials must make special transportation arrangements. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) regulations, …

Rethinking Special Education's "Least Restrictive Environment" Requirement, Cari Carson

Michigan Law Review

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act promotes the education of students with disabilities together with their nondisabled peers, requiring education in the “least restrictive environment” (“LRE”). This requirement has long been subject to competing interpretations. This Note contends that the dominant interpretation—requiring education in the least restrictive environment available—is deficient and allows students to be placed in unnecessarily restrictive settings. Drawing from child mental health law, this Note proposes an alternative LRE approach that requires education in the least restrictive environment needed and argues that this alternative approach is a better reading of the law.

Legal And Ethical Considerations For Social Media Hiring Practices In The Workplace, Andrew S. Hazelton, Ashley Terhorst

The Hilltop Review

Social media has certainly evolved and continues to do so with each new day. Social media in its infancy was not as widespread in the personal lives of people, let alone in the workplace. In the following years since its inception, social media has captured a significant amount of time of individuals in every aspect of their lives. However, with this advancement also comes possible conflict in how companies and departments within a university or college setting conduct background checks. Social media makes public profiles an easy click away and many potential job seekers may not see the problems that …

What Are We Making A Federal Case Of? An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of Education And The Right To Privacy In The Classroom, Ronnie Jane Lamm

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tinkering With Success: College Athletes, Social Media And The First Amendment, Mary Margaret Meg Penrose

Pace Law Review

Good law does not always make good policy. This article seeks to provide a legal assessment, not a policy directive. The policy choices made by individual institutions and athletic departments should be guided by law, but absolutely left to institutional discretion. Many articles written on college student-athletes’ social media usage attempt to urge policy directives clothed in constitutional analysis.

In this author’s opinion, these articles have lost perspective – constitutional perspective. This article seeks primarily to provide a legal and constitutional assessment so that schools and their athletic departments will have ample information to then make their own policy choices.

An Idea For Special Education: Why The Idea Should Have Primacy Over The Ada In Adjudicating Education Claims For Students With Disabilities, Angela Estrella-Lemus

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

Faculty Insights On Educational Diversity, Meera E. Deo

Fordham Law Review

    Twice in the past two years, the U.S. Supreme Court has approved educational diversity as a compelling state interest that justifies the use of race in higher education admissions decisions. Nevertheless, it remains on somewhat shaky ground. Over the past decade, the Court has emphasized that its acceptance of diversity stems from the expectation that a diverse student body will enhance the classroom environment, with students drawing on their diverse backgrounds during classroom conversations that ultimately bring the law to life. Yet, the Court provides no support for its assumption that admitting and enrolling diverse students actually result in these …

Varsity Blues: Student Athlete Unionization Is The Wrong Way Forward To Reform Collegiate Athletics, Michael P. Cianfichi

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Crowded Room Or The Perfect Fit? Exploring Affirmative Action Treatment In College And University Admissions For Self-Identified Lgbt Individuals, Herbert C. Brown Jr.

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article explores affirmative action treatment for self-identified LGBT individuals in college and university admissions. This Article seeks to explain that while granting affirmative action treatment to self-identified students in the admission process is constitutional, under the current affirmative action precedent, there is a lack of sufficient justification for such an expansion. This Article will also explore the advantages and disadvantages should colleges and universities choose to implement affirmative action programs for LGBT applicants.

Section I of this Article will begin by depicting the evolution of affirmative action programs since their inception in the early 1960s. This section will also …

An Update On Student Equal Access, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

In Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens (1990), the Supreme Court upheld the Equal Access Act (EAA), a federal law enacted to permit student-organized groups to meet during noninstructional time.

The EAA traces its origins to Widmar v. Vincent (1981). At issue in Widmar was a policy whereby officials at a state university in Missouri made campus facilities generally available to student groups for their activities. Treating religion as a form of free speech, the Supreme Court ruled that insofar as officials allowed more than 100 student groups to use campus facilities, they created a forum for …

Teachers' Perceptions Of Their Ability To Respond To Active Shooter Incidents, Carole Frances Rider

Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to determine Mississippi high school teachers’ perceptions regarding their preparedness for an active shooter incident. The study included an extensive literature review that included background and policy context, theoretical foundations, pertinent research and professional perspectives and a worldwide timeline of school shootings. The study also included data collection and analysis, results, conclusions, recommendations for policymakers and educational leaders, and recommendations for further research.

The study was conducted to determine if there was a relationship between school planning procedures, participation in practice and drill activity, and administrator preparedness for an active shooter incident and …

The Implementation Of The Right To Education In Indonesia, Munafrizal Manan

Indonesia Law Review

This article discusses the implementation of the right to education in Indonesia. It uses human rights and historical approaches. Human rights approach is used to describe international human rights instruments on the guarantee of the right to education that is applied universally. This approach is also dealing with international human rights instrument on the right to education that has been ratified by Indonesia as well as national regulation instruments on the right to education applied in Indonesia. Historical approach highlights the role of Indonesian governments in education sector after the Independence Day, especially regarding the implementation of the right to …

Courtroom To Classroom: Judicial Policymaking And Affirmative Action, Dylan Britton Saul

Political Science Honors Projects

The judicial branch, by exercising judicial review, can replace public policies with ones of their own creation. To test the hypothesis that judicial policymaking is desirable only when courts possess high capacity and necessity, I propose an original model incorporating six variables: generalism, bi-polarity, minimalism, legitimization, structural impediments, and public support. Applying the model to a comparative case study of court-sanctioned affirmative action policies in higher education and K-12 public schools, I find that a lack of structural impediments and bi-polarity limits the desirability of judicial race-based remedies in education. Courts must restrain themselves when engaging in such policymaking.

Exhibits To Accompany Testimony & Statement Of Dean Hill Rivkin Before The Senate Judiciary Committee (21 April 2015), Dean H. Rivkin

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Exhibits to accompany testimony and statement-of-record of Professor Dean Hill Rivkin (The University of Tennessee College of Law), as submitted on April 21, 2015, before a hearing convened by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary: “Improving Accountability and Oversight of Juvenile Justice Grants.”

2015 Legislative Summary, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The 90th General Assembly opened its Regular Session on January 12 and recessed on April 9. Meetings of the House and Senate education committees were usually standing room only for discussions of a broad range of bills on early childhood, K-12, and higher education issues. The purpose of this policy brief is to review the K-12 bills that garnered the most attention and have been signed into law by firstterm Governor Asa Hutchinson. These highlights are organized into several categories as shown in This Brief

Grading Arkansas’ Schools, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Report Cards for Arkansas schools released by the Arkansas Department of Education contain valuable information for stakeholders. As in past years, the report cards outline student demographics and academic achievement, as well as rates of attendance, graduation, dropout, grade inflation and college remediation. Report cards also contain information on teacher quality and school environment indicators. There are a few new pieces of information provided this year, specifically a school rating which assigns a letter grade to schools.

Covering Up An Infection With A Bandage: A Call To Action To Address Flaws In Ohio's Anti-Hazing Legislation, Justin M. Burns

Akron Law Review

Hazing is not just a student and education problem – it is a society problem. There have been attempts to address the problem, such as educational programming, adopting anti-hazing policies in schools, and condemning hazing through legislatures. However, these attempts, including Ohio’s 1983 anti-hazing statute, only punish the hazing as an “act;” put differently, these approaches characterize hazing as an activity that someone does to someone. But after considering human development and the reality of how hazing has materialized in our communities, hazing is not something done do people, but why something is done to them.

For example, consider an …

Towards An Outcrit Pedagogy Of Anti-Subordination In The Classroom, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This Article discusses how traditional teaching practices can reinforce systemic discrimination, exclusion, subordination and oppression within the classroom in particular detriment to women and students of color. The Article traces the discussions about pedagogy in Outcrit literature and proposes that Outcrit scholars teaching techniques within the classroom should reflect anti-subordination praxis in teaching. Drawing from the work of Paulo Freire, Derrick Bell and others, the Article proposes that teaching from an anti-subordination perspective requires a praxis of collaborative, non-hierarchical teaching that calls for an epistemological shift. A pedagogy that frees the student to think independently and leads to an experience …