Education Law Commons^™

Clinicians Reflect On Covid-19: Lessons Learned And Looking Beyond, The Association Of American Law Schools (Aals) Policy Committee, Deborah Archer, Caitlin Barry, Lisa Bliss, Gautam Hans, Vida Johnson, Carolyn Haas, Lynnise E. Pantin, Kele Stewart, Erica Wilson, The Clinical Legal Education Association (Clea) Committee For Faculty Equity And Inclusion, Priya Baskaran, Jennifer Fernandez, Crystal Grant, Anjum Gupta, Julia Hernandez, Alexis Karteron, Shobha Mahadev

Faculty Scholarship

As a result of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, clinical faculty had to abruptly adapt their clinical teaching and case supervision practices to adjust to the myriad restrictions brought on by the pandemic. This brought specialized challenges for clinicians who uniquely serve as both legal practitioners and law teachers in the law school setting. With little support and guidance, clinicians tackled never before seen difficulties in the uncharted waters of running a clinical law practice during a pandemic.

In this report, we review the responses of 220 clinicians to survey questions relating to how law clinics and clinicians were treated by …

"Defund The (School) Police"?: Bringing Data To Key School-To-Prison Pipeline Claims, Michael Heise, Jason P. Nance

UF Law Faculty Publications

Nationwide calls to “Defund the Police,” largely attributable to the resurgent Black Lives Matter demonstrations, have motivated derivative calls for public school districts to consider “defunding” (or modifying) school resource officer (“SRO/police”) programs. To be sure, a school’s SRO/police presence—and the size of that presence—may influence the school’s student discipline reporting policies and practices. How schools report student discipline and whether it involves referrals to law enforcement agencies matter, particularly as they may fuel a growing “school-to-prison pipeline.” The school-to-prison pipeline research literature features two general claims that frame debates about changes in how public schools approach student discipline and …

To Report Or Not To Report: Data On School Law Enforcement, Student Discipline, Race, And The 'School-To-Prison Pipeline', Michael Heise, Jason P. Nance

UF Law Faculty Publications

The “school-to-prison pipeline” wreaks havoc on the lives of thousands of students each year, particularly with respect to students of color. While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the school-to-prison pipeline remain unclear, the eventual return to full in-person teaching nationwide undoubtedly will renew this long-festering problem. The presence of law enforcement officers in schools is a key component of the school-to-prison pipeline and has generated considerable recent national attention, especially after George Floyd’s tragic death in the spring of 2020. Indeed, several robust empirical studies document that the increased presence of school resource (and/or police) officers in a …

Improving The Legal And Regulatory Framework Of Restraint And Seclusion In D.C. Public Schools, James Gallagher

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Unsafe At Any Campus: Don't Let Colleges Become The Next Cruise Ships, Nursing Homes, And Food Processing Plants, Peter H. Huang, Debra S. Austin Dr

Indiana Law Journal

The decision to educate our students via in-person or online learning environments while COVID-19 is unrestrained is a false choice, when the clear path to achieve our chief objective safely, the education of our students, can be done online. Our decision-making should be guided by the overriding principle that people matter more than money. We recognize that lost tuition revenue if students delay or defer education is an institutional concern, but we posit that many students and parents would prefer a safer online alternative to riskier in-person options, especially as we get closer to fall, and American death tolls rise. …

Deficit Frame Dangers, Jonathan Feingold

Faculty Scholarship

Civil rights advocates have long viewed litigation as an essential, if insufficient, catalyst of social change. In part, it is. But in critical respects that remain underexplored in legal scholarship, civil rights litigation can hinder short- and long-term projects of racial justice.

Specifically, certain civil rights doctrines reward plaintiffs for emphasizing community deficits—or what I term a “deficit frame.” Legal doctrine, in other words, invites legal narratives that track, activate, and reinforce pernicious racial stereotypes. This dynamic, even in the context of well-intended litigation, risks entrenching conditions that drive racial inequality—including the conditions that litigation is often intended to address. …

The Role Of Lawyers In Bridging The Gap Between The Robust Federal Rights To Education And Relatively Low Education Outcomes In Guatemala, Maryam Ahranjani

Faculty Scholarship

Relative to other countries in the world and in Central America, the Guatemalan Constitution and the federal education law include a robust and detailed right to education. However, literacy rates and secondary educational attainment, particularly for Indigenous people and young women living in rural communities, remain low. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated disparities. Once children return to schools after the pandemic, the gaps will be even larger. Lawyers can play a critical role in making the strong Constitutional right to education more meaningful.

Pandemic Schooling And The Politics Of Safety, Lisa M. Kelly, Deniz Kilinc, Sonia Lawrence, Cosimo Morin

Articles & Book Chapters

In this paper, the authors consider how pandemic schooling is increasing educational inequalities that may have generational effects. Reviewing emerging evidence on rates of return to in-person schooling and disparities in remote learning in Ontario, the authors argue that the pandemic is accelerating existing trends of privatization and choice. Emerging data suggests that students from more affluent and whiter households have returned to in-person learning at higher rates than their lower-income and racialized peers. When families with more resources have opted for remote learning, they have been better able to supplement online lessons. For numerous reasons, including higher rates of …

Special Education's Lessons For School Funding Litigation, Spencer C. Weiler, Scott R. Bauries

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this Article, we make the case that the currently dominant approaches to challenging the constitutionality of a state’s funding efforts have proven ineffective. Instead, future lawsuits designed to bring about lasting funding reform should be informed by the successes within the field of special education by asking courts to examine individual-rights claims based on one student, or several similarly-situated individual students, petitioning the court for relief tailored to that student or class. Such an approach to school finance litigation could result in a decision that limits relief to just one application of the entire funding formula, and the remedy …

The New Tipping Point: Disruptive Politics And Habituating Equality, Sarah E. Waldeck, Rachel D. Godsil

Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Essay argues that the events of 2020 opened a window of political opportunity to implement policies aimed at dismantling structural injustice and systemic racism. Building on the work of philosopher Charles Mills and political scientist Clarissa Rile Hayward, we argue that the Black Lives Matter Movement constituted the “disruptive politics” necessary to shift dispositions of many in the United States toward racial equity by interrupting the white “epistemologies of ignorance.” Moreover, because policies that correct structural injustice are beneficial for people across race, even those whose hearts and minds remained closed may embrace legislative policies that function to dismantle …

A Reflection On Integration, Neil G. Williams

Faculty Publications & Other Works

I wrote this essay in December 2019, shortly after attending the 2019 LatCrit Conference in Atlanta. I grew up in Atlanta during the heyday of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s into the early 1970s. Attending the 2019 LatCrit Conference brought back memories of my experiences as part of the earliest waves of black students sent to integrate Atlanta's historically all-white high schools. In the intervening years, too many elementary and high schools in America remain segregated (or, in many instances, only nominally integrated) as broad swaths of America have abandoned the commitment to ensuring that our young people …

Educational Adequacy Challenges: The Impact On Minnesota Charter Schools, Wendy Baudoin

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

The Rhode Island Student Loan Bill Of Rights Act¾Far More Than “An Aspirational Document”, Edward A. Gencarelli Jr.

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Historically Black Colleges & Universities: A Model For American Education, Jennifer M. Smith

Journal Publications

Hungry for freedom and knowledge, enslaved Blacks engaged in a massive general strike against slavery by transferring their labor from the Confederate planter to the Northern invader, and this decided the Civil War. In 1865, the North conquered the South, and slavery officially ended. Having been starved of the opportunity to learn to read or write, the recently emancipated Blacks were eager to learn. Within a year after slavery ended, however, Florida and other Southern states enacted laws to ensure the continuation of the vestiges of slavery in the United States. The legacy of slavery and racism evolved into an …

A Gender And Race Theoretical And Probabilistic Analysis Of The Recent Title Ix Policy Changes, Jordan Wellington

Scripps Senior Theses

On May 6th, 2020, after extensive public comment and review, the Department of Education published the final rule for the new Title IX regulations, which took effect in schools on August 14th. Title IX is the nearly fifty year old piece of the Education Amendments that prohibits sexual discrimination in federally funded schools. Several of these changes, such as the inclusion of live hearings and cross examination of witnesses, have been widely criticized by victims’ rights advocates for potentially retraumatizing victims of sexual assault and discouraging students from pursuing a Title IX claim. While the impact of the new regulations …

Just Another Fast Girl: Exploring Slavery's Continued Impact On The Loss Of Black Girlhood, Mikah K. Thompson

Faculty Works

A troubling legacy of American chattel slavery is the justice system’s continued failure to provide adequate protection to African-American crime victims. This piece focuses on the law’s historic unwillingness to shield Black girls from acts of sexual violence. During slavery, lawmakers refused to criminalize rape committed against Black girls and women based not only on the fact that they were considered property but also on stereotypes about their sexuality. Even though the law now criminalizes the rape of Black girls, African-American rape survivors encounter more skepticism and hostility when they come forward with their stories compared to their White counterparts. …

Reforming Sexual Health Education In Minnesota Schools: An Evidence-Based Approach, Antonia Kurtz

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

How Increased Legal Representation Can Close The Gap In Special Education Discrepancies, Todd Carney

Touro Law Review

This piece looks at how the existing education regime has led to disparities between white and minority students. The paper finds that the disparity gets even worse when special education is factored in. The reason so many low-income and minority students with disabilities receive such a poor education is that they do not have the proper legal representation to demand the rights that they are guaran- teed under US law. This paper looks at how low-income and minority families have been cheated out of proper legal representation in other areas and how receiving the necessary legal representation can lead to …

Let's Get Serious - The Clear Case For Compensating The Student Athlete - By The Numbers - A University Of Michigan Athletic Program Case Study, Neal Newman

Faculty Scholarship

Should college athletes be compensated for their play and if so, how? The first question has been a debate for some time now. But the second question—the “how”—not so much. This writing addresses both questions in depth. With the Ed O’Bannon case that was decided back in August of 2014 and the palaver the Northwestern football team raised in their efforts to unionize, it is acknowledged that the discussions on this issue may have reached its crescendo years ago. That is until now. On September 27, 2019, Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, signed into law Senate Bill 206. Senate …