Education Law Commons^™

Roberts's Revisions: A Narratological Reading Of The Affirmative Action Cases, Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Faculty Scholarship

In a seminal article published nearly twenty years ago in the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Professor Peter Brooks posed a critical yet underexplored question: "Does the [flaw [n]eed a [n]arratology?"⁵ In essence, he asked whether law as a field should have a framework for deconstructing and understanding how and why a legal opinion, including the events that the opinion is centered on, has been crafted and presented in a particular way.⁶ After highlighting that "how a story is told can make a difference in legal outcomes," Brooks encouraged legal actors to "talk narrative talk" …

How Discriminatory Censorship Laws Imperil Public Education, Jonathan Feingold, Joshua Weishart

Faculty Scholarship

“Discriminatory censorship laws” regulate classroom conversations about racism, gender identity, and other topics targeted in the backlash against efforts toward inclusive classrooms and curricula. This policy brief examines the proliferation of these laws and their impact on K-12 schools, including the creation of hostile learning environments that expose students and educators to a heightened threat of race- and sex-based harassment and to formal sanctions and social ostracization. The laws also foster a climate of fear and anxiety among educators, effectively coercing them to shun critical inquiry and thought on targeted topics and more generally. The result is a curriculum that …

Inconsistencies In State Court Decisions Regarding Public School Financing Are Violating The Constitutional Rights Of Citizens: Why The Nevada Court In Shea V. State Should Have Intervened, Corinne Milnamow

University of Miami Law Review

In 1973, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case, San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, which held there was no fundamental right to education under the United States Constitution. In the years that have followed Rodriguez, state courts across the country have been left to decide issues related to public school financing. Many plaintiffs in these cases will argue that education is a fundamental right under their state’s constitution and that their respective state’s public school financing structure—one that heavily relies on local property taxes—is unconstitutional because of the discrepancies in the quality of education one will receive in …

Episode 3: Tarnished Gold, Sara Gras

Season 01

To better understand how and why sports are a part of education, this episode goes back to where they started. Although the culture of youth sports has certainly evolved, the purpose of interscholastic athletics really has not. Today, just like 100 years ago, educators value the role of sport in preparing kids for success in life. But the structures governing competition have always limited who can participate and how they are recognized. Many thanks to all the guests who contributed their thoughts.

This episode features clips from conversations with:

Kim Yuracko (Faculty Profile)
Judd and Mary Morris Leighton …

Congress's Empty Promises: The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act In The Midst Of Education Crisis, Sarah Jana

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Education, The First Amendment, And The Constitution, Erwin Chemerinsky

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Episode 2: State Of The Union, Sara Gras

Season 01

Episode 2 looks at the recent legislative push to ban transgender kids from scholastic sports across the country in the context of the anti-trans bathroom bans that preceded it. I also dive into the Soule v. Connecticut case that is so frequently referenced as an example of trans athlete exceptionalism despite the actual facts. There will be more later in the season on the organizations encouraging the passage of sports bans and supporting their defense in court, but my guests in this episode start to shed some light on who they are and what motivates their actions. I extend my …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Forgotten: Nyc And School Segregation, Deja Graham

Buffalo Human Rights Law Review

School segregation is an issue of the past and present. Generations of Black and Brown Americans have attended schools that were inadequate and unequal to their white counterparts. This inequity in access to quality education has caused issues with diversity in professional fields, like the medical and legal fields. The lack of diversity in these fields are the results of decades of school segregation due to the government’s failure to eradicate the dual system of education. Since the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education, little progress has been made in providing Black and Brown children in metropolitan cities …

Revisiting The “Tradition Of Local Control” In Public Education, Carter Brace

Michigan Law Review

In Milliken v. Bradley, the Supreme Court declared “local control” the single most important tradition of public education. Milliken and other related cases developed this notion of a tradition, which has frustrated attempts to achieve equitable school funding and desegregation through federal courts. However, despite its significant impact on American education, most scholars have treated the “tradition of local control” as doctrinally insignificant. These scholars depict the tradition either as a policy preference with no formal legal meaning or as one principle among many that courts may use to determine equitable remedies. This Note argues that the Supreme Court …

A Review Of The 2022/23 International Moots Season, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This is the ninth annual review of Singapore’s performance in international moot court competitions. The preceding season (2021/22) had set a high bar, considering that Singapore law schools took the top two spots in the NICA Law School Rankings. The NICA rankings are based on how law schools throughout the world perform in various international moots, with points weighted according to the scale of the competition. With six championships (including two Grand Slams) as well as a third championship final appearance in the Jessup, SMU took top spot in the NICA rankings for the second time in its history.

Context At The Periphery: The Rise Of The Critical-Contextual Legal Education Reform Movement, Cara R. Shaffer

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that legal education must reform by integrating critical-contextual approaches to address declining critical thinking skills and better prepare students for contemporary legal practice. It emphasizes the need to move beyond the traditional Langdell case method, which separates doctrinal learning from practical and contextual understanding, and highlights the importance of interdisciplinary perspectives in legal training.

Episode 1: More Than A Game, Sara Gras

Season 01

In Episode 1, I start to introduce you to some of the legal scholars and advocates I interviewed in my research. Their remarks all come from recorded interviews that are available in full via provided links. I excerpted these specific portions to frame my approach to discussing the significance of excluding transgender youth from playing sports with their peers. In addition to causing direct harm to individuals, participation bans create broader social harms that we should find extremely concerning. If we value the provision of a well-rounded and robust primary educational experience to all children, then it strikes me as …

Defendant St. Isidore Of Seville Catholic Virtual School's Motion To Dismiss, Michael H. Mcginley, Steven A. Engel, M. Scott Proctor, John A. Meiser, Michael R. Perri, Socorro Adams Dooley

Court Briefs

No. CV-2023-1857
OKPLAC, Inc. v. Statewide Virtual Charter School Board

From the Introduction

In 1999, the Oklahoma legislature enacted the Oklahoma Charter Schools Act, inviting both public and private organizations to establish charter schools to "promote a diversity of educational choices" for Oklahoma families. 70 O.S. § 3-134(1)(3). Through the charter school program, Oklahoma partners with these organizations to "[i]ncrease learning opportunities for students"; "[e]ncourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods"; and "[p]rovide additional academic choices for parents and schools." 70 O.S. § 3-13 l(A). So that educators have the necessary freedom to accomplish these goals, the Act …

Season 1 Prologue, Sara Gras

Season 01

This brief prologue explains a bit about who I am as host and creator of Season 1 of Hearsay from the Sidelines. You can learn more about me as a professional via my Seton Hall Law faculty profile. My interest in creating a podcast focused on the issue of transgender youth inclusion in scholastic sports grew out of a forthcoming article I wrote on podcasting as a medium for legal scholarship (draft available on SSRN). As I explain, I am not a civil rights, gender, or sports law scholar and I have not previously written about …

Title Seven Ate Nine? Extending Bostock's Meaning Of "Sex" From Title Vii To Title Ix, Julia L. Shea

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

When JayCee Cooper walked out onto the platform at a women’s powerlifting competition for the first time, “everything else fell away: her years-long internal struggle over her gender identity, her decision to leave men’s sports when she began transitioning, her doubts that she would ever feel safe if she returned to competitions.” Powerlifting was JayCee’s way of feeling empowered in her own life, but after signing up for more competitions, she was told she could no longer compete because of a discriminatory policy that barred transgender women. Transgender athletes play sports for the same reasons as anyone else, including …

Education And Democracy From Brown To Plyler, Nicholas Espíritu

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Judicial review has often been cast in terms of democratic legitimacy. Democratic legitimacy is often linked to whether it institutes the will of the people through majoritarian rule and whether it creates processes for reevaluation of these prior decisions by newly constituted majorities. Judicial review of majoritarian decisions has often been criticized as a overriding or circumventing of these democratic processes. Beginning with Brown v. Board of Education, the Warren Court adopted a resolution of the “counter-majoritarian difficulty” of judicial review by tacitly accepting Justice Stone’s formulation from footnote four of United States v. Carolene Products and engaging …

Opening Remarks, Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Thank you. I am honored to be here. And there is no more fitting way to honor Michael than around the 40th anniversary of Plyler v. Doe.

This case centered on Texas statute § 21.031, which on its face, permitted the local school districts to exclude noncitizen children who entered the United States without immigration status or to charge admission for the same. The questions before the Court were: (1) whether a noncitizen under the statute who is present in the state without legal status is a “person” and therefore in the jurisdiction of the state within the meaning …

Introduction, Rosemary Salomone

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This issue of the St. John’s Law Review includes several Articles that were initially presented at the Law Review’s Fall 2022 virtual symposium. The symposium commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Plyler v. Doe as a starting point for discussing current immigration law in the United States. It was dedicated in memory of Professor Michael A. Olivas, who held the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law (Emeritus) and was the Director of the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston Law Center. Professor Olivas, a passionate advocate of …

Sitla And How To Make It Pay: Two Proposals For Increasing The Profitability Of Utah’S School And Institutional Trust Lands, Katrina Cole

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.