Education Law Commons^™

Educating English Learners: Reconciling Bilingualism And Accountability, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In late July 2011, an estimated 5,000 individuals converged on Washington, D.C., to protest the direction of state and federal education policy. Fueled by social media, the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action was a grassroots effort organized largely by teachers, with principals, school board members, and activists lending support. Featured speakers included prominent education figures, like historian Diane Ravitch and Jonathan Kozol, a former teacher known for his writings on school inequalities. Specific points of contention focused on high stakes testing and test-based accountability, key elements in the Obama Administration’s Blueprint for Reform and Race …

Multilingualism And Multiculturalism: Transatlantic Discourses On Language, Identity, And Immigrant Schooling, Rosemary C. Salomone

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In September 2010, an eye-catching article appeared on the front page of the New York Times “Arts” section. The headline read, “Cultures United to Honor Separatism.” Basque and Catalan nationalists, Sinn Fein leaders, and others were convening on the island of Corsica, not to chart out war strategies, as might have been expected, but rather to discuss cultural politics. As time would tell, pitched battles over sovereignty and independence seemed to be yielding to equally passionate calls for linguistic and cultural recognition. Facing the pressure of English as the global lingua franca, historically militant groups were placing their …

The Lawmaking Family, Noa Ben-Asher

Faculty Publications

Increasingly there are conflicts over families trying to “opt out” of various legal structures, especially public school education. Examples of opting-out conflicts include a father seeking to exempt his son from health education classes; a mother seeking to exempt her daughter from mandatory education about the perils of female sexuality; and a vegetarian student wishing to opt out of in-class frog dissection. The Article shows that, perhaps paradoxically, the right to direct the upbringing of children was more robust before it was constitutionalized by the Supreme Court in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925). In …

Shackled And Chained In The Schoolyard: A New Approach To Schools' Section 1983 Liability Under The Special Relationship Test, Ali Davison

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Undo Undue Hardship: An Objective Approach To Discharging Federal Students Loans In Bankruptcy, Aaron N. Taylor

All Faculty Scholarship

A debtor seeking to discharge student loans in bankruptcy must prove that paying the debt would cause an undue hardship upon him and his dependents. Undue hardship, however, is an undefined concept, flummoxing debtors, creditors and judges alike. The result of this ambiguity is rampant inconsistency in the manners in which similarly-situated debtors (and creditors) are treated by the courts. This article argues that the undue hardship standard should be replaced by a framework that uses debt service thresholds to determine the propriety of federal student loan bankruptcy discharges. Eligibility for discharge would depend on outstanding loan amounts, debtor income …

Raising The Bar: Law Schools And Legal Institutions Leading To Educate Undocumented Students, Karla M. Mckanders, Raquel Aldana, Beth Lyon

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This paper explores the adoption of best practices for the admission and graduation of undocumented students as lawyers and promoting their integration into the legal profession. Law schools are already both knowingly and unknowingly admitting and graduating undocumented students. It is our contention in this paper, after careful analysis, that no law precludes law schools from admitting undocumented students, offering them in-state tuition or other types of private and even public financial aid in states that permit it, or allowing them to participate fully in the law schools’ educational opportunities. We acknowledge that there are tensions around the decision to …

Nepa, Climate Change, And Public Lands Decision Making, Mark Squillace, Alexander Hood

Publications

One of the most difficult challenges facing public land managers today is how to address climate change in a meaningful way when making decisions affecting public lands. This problem is largely the product of the high levels of uncertainty surrounding climate change and the potential consequences of climate change for the large and complex landscapes and ecosystems that public land agencies manage.

In February 2010, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) issued draft guidance to federal agencies describing how these agencies should address climate change in their decision documents. Recognizing the difficulty of the task, however, the CEQ’s draft guidance …

Charting Kentucky's Path: How The Commonwealth Can Innovate Its Public Schools With Charter Legislation, Tyler Roberts

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Time To Sever The Dead Hand: Fisk University And The Cost Of The Cy Pres Doctrine, Melanie B. Leslie

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Implications Of Title Ix Compliance In Colleges And Universities, Michael Rosen

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The War On Women's Fundamental Rights: Connecting U.S. Supreme Court Originalism To Rightwing, Conservative Extremism In American Politics, Donna J. King

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that the Fourteenth Amendment's Privileges or Immunities Clause, intended to protect fundamental rights for all citizens, including women, has been systematically undermined by the U.S. Supreme Court's originalist interpretations. This erosion, exemplified by cases like SlaughterHouse, has emboldened right-wing extremism and threatens women's rights, particularly in the context of unenumerated fundamental rights. The article contends that the Court's narrow constructions and disregard for legislative history have perpetuated inequality and stripped the Clause of its intended protective power.

Why We Need Race Conscious Admissions, Deborah N. Archer

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Affirmative Action In Higher Education Symposium: Comment, Lee C. Bollinger

Faculty Scholarship

This issue – affirmative action in higher education – is an issue of enormous significance for the country. So I don't for a second treat this as just another conversation about an important legal question. I think this is one of those issues that define the country.

I'll tell you what I did as President of the University of Michigan, and in the course of that I'll try to explain the ways in which we formulated the cases that went to the Supreme Court and resulted in very important clarifications to the Fourteenth Amendment and affirmative action. Then I want …

Regulating The Boundaries Between The Public And Private Lives Of Teachers In Changing Cultural Contexts: An American Perspective, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Regardless of whether they wish to be regarded as such, there can be little doubt that most teachers and parents in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States agree that teachers are role models for students regardless of whether educators act in or out of schools. Yet, during this time of changing cultural contexts, the boundaries between the private and professional lives of teachers are blurred such that teachers may face liability for what they say or post in a more contemporary application of free speech, via the internet.

In light of ongoing changes, this paper examines how shifts ranging …

Religious Consumers And Institutional Challenges To American Public Schools, Aaron J. Saiger

Faculty Scholarship

The paradigm of American K–12 education is shifting as the institution of local educational polities, each responsible for own its 'common schools,' faces competition from programs of school choice. Although charter schools and related reforms are generally studied in terms of quality and equity, the rise of consumer sovereignty as an alternative to political sovereignty as an organizing principle for educational governance has much wider ramifications. Paradigms of choice have already begun dramatically to alter religious education and its relationship to public schooling. Moreover, because these paradigms rely upon consumer preferences and the aggregation of those preferences by markets, the …

Book Review Of The Future Of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity As An Education Reform Strategy, Eloise Pasachoff

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The last decade has seen a quiet but steady expansion of interest in using socioeconomic diversity in schools to improve educational outcomes. Ten years ago, only a few school districts around the country used formal strategies to integrate their schools along class lines. Today, over eighty school districts around the United States, together educating around four million students, ensure that poor children are taught alongside middle-class and wealthier children through a variety of voluntary integration programs. The message of The Future of School Integration: Socioeconomic Diversity as an Education Reform Strategy, the important new book edited by Richard Kahlenberg, is …

Acting For The Left Behind: How The Native Class Act Could Close The Gaps In American Indian Education, Aaron J. Stewart

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

((Re)Considering Race In The Desegregation Of Higher Education, Maurice C. Daniels, Cameron V. Patterson

Georgia Law Review

This Essay examines the struggle to desegregate the
University of Georgia (UGA) in the context of the broader
strategies to defeat segregation in higher education. In
doing so, this Essay explores Horace T. Ward's struggle to
enroll in UGA School of Law in Ward v. Regents, the first
lawsuit in Georgia history to attempt to dismantle the
centuries-old practice of segregation at UGA. The Essay
then examines the Holmes v. Danner case, which led to the
admission of the first African-American students at UGA
and the dismantling of segregation statewide in Georgia's
public colleges and universities.
Building upon this backdrop, …

Education's Elusive Future, Storied Past, And The Fundamental Inequities Between, Derek W. Black

Georgia Law Review

During the past half-century, education has experienced
a broad expansion of civil rights. Where no rights
previously existed, students now have the right to be free
from discrimination based on race, language status,
disability, wealth, gender, and homelessness. The full
development of these rights, along with substantive
educational improvements for disadvantaged students,
however, has recently stalled. For instance, mandatory
school desegregation, which laid the political and
theoretical foundation for other movements, is nearly non-
existent today. Other movements fare better than
desegregation, but nonetheless face serious limitations.
The overall trend of these various movements raises
serious questions about the prospects …

The First Amendment, Public School Students, And The Need For Clear Limits On School Officials' Authority Over Off-Campus Student Speech, Rory A. Weeks

Georgia Law Review

When, if ever, can school officials punish a student's off-
campus speech? The Supreme Court's student-speech
jurisprudence does not provide a clear answer. But this
much is clear: School officials do not possess absolute
authority over students' on-campus speech. Public school
students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the
schoolhouse gate. And yet during school or school-related
activities, public school students do not have coequal First
Amendment rights with adults in other contexts. During
school or school-related activities, school officials may
proscribe otherwise-permitted speech in order to fulfill the
school's basic educational mission, which includes
instructingstudents in civility. …