Considers the issues in Board of Education v. Pico, a case involving a school board's order removing several books from a school library. Notes that the U.S. Supreme Court's review of the case failed to clarify whether school board authority or constitutionally protected rights should prevail in such cases. (PGD)

Although school boards can now be directly sued, students and others will find it very difficult to prove the sort of harm that will justify the award of monetary damages. (Author/IRT)

When the rhetoric is removed, it is clear that the students' lawyers were asserting that it is unconstitutional for school board members to resort to their own political, social, and moral views when making decisions affecting the curriculum. The courts did not agree. (Author/IRT)

The Dayton decision is the clearest and most direct statement made by the Supreme Court about the necessity for closely tailoring any desegregation remedy to the scope of the constitutional violation. (Author/IRT)

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that a Texas school superintendent, having failed to submit a written contract to the school board for execution, had no basis for holding that a property interest in employment existed. Certainty about binding obligations requires written agreements signed by both parties. (PB)

School boards may permit incumbent teacher unions access to mailboxes while prohibiting rival unions such access. Dissenting justices argued that exclusive access is discrimination and amounts to censorship and infringement of the First Amendment. School boards should consider carefully before granting exclusive access to incumbent unions. (PB)

Recounts the case of "Turk v. Franklin Special School District" in Tennessee, in which the board's dismissal of a teacher was reversed by the Tennessee Supreme Court because the board failed to follow its own dismissal procedures and because the particular drunk driving conviction did not warrant dismissal. (RW)

Collective bargaining is merely a process for reconciling the expectations of two parties in order to arrive at a written contract, according to the author. His paper describes the bargaining process, following chronologically its major steps. The paper begins with a discussion of the recognition and certification of teacher unions. The next…

This paper argues that courts have tended to identify and enforce individual rights at the expense, in many instances, of the ability of school boards and legislatures to carry out what they perceive to be the will of the majority of voters in their jurisdictions. The trend emphasizing individual rights began in 1954 with the Supreme Court…