In two mid-sized, southern cities, Nashville and Louisville, communities took vastly different approaches to public school desegregation. Where Louisville saw widespread success in fully integrating its schools, Nashville failed. Through qualitative research it is asked, "What are the most compelling explanations for the long-term failure of…

This article discusses concerns about how Neil M. Gorsuch, a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, might influence decisions regarding cases involving the appropriate scope of services guaranteed by federal special-education law, government aid to religious institutions providing educational services, and how intellectual property law applies to sports…

Fifty years ago, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." In exploring the story of the events behind the essay, and the Supreme Court case that resulted, "Walker v. Birmingham", 399 U.S. 307 (1967), educators will find a pedagogically powerful lens through which to review the seminal…

March 18, 2013, marked the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's unanimous 1963 decision in "Gideon v. Wainwright." "Gideon," a petty criminal, accused of suspicion of breaking and entry was the seminal Supreme Court case that ruled that defendants in criminal cases have the right to an attorney even if they cannot afford to…

Reading U.S. Supreme Court opinions can be intimidating. Yet, in the digital age, it has never been easier to access them. The average opinion is about 4,750 words, and is one of approximately 75 issued by the Court each year. It might be reassuring to know that opinions contain similar parts and tend to follow a similar format. There are also…

A measure of "clusterability" serves as the basis of a new methodology designed to preserve cluster structure in a reduced dimensional space. Similar to principal component analysis, which finds the direction of maximal variance in multivariate space, principal cluster axes find the direction of maximum clusterability in multivariate space.…

The author reports on how U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' opinions in youths'-rights cases reflect his "originalist" thinking. Justice Thomas, 63, marks two decades on the court Oct. 23, and a hallmark of his tenure is his willingness to carve out a solitary stance on certain issues. Particularly in cases involving schools…

By the end of the 2008-2009 term, Justice David Souter's decision to return to New Hampshire and President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to replace him on the bench had taken over the Supreme Court news cycle. In the end, the consensus has been that, with the possible exception of criminal justice issues, swapping out Souter for Sotomayor…

This dissertation is a "public forum" legal case study on the federal court case "Madison v. Wolf" (2005) involving a conflict over the exercise of First Amendment speech rights on the Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC) campus in Denver, Colorado. The dissertation involves the content analysis of the "Mason v.…

In September, Oxford University Press published "Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency," written by Richard Posner, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Judge Posner's book, which explores how people might strike a balance between constitutionally protected liberties and security concerns…

In this essay, the author describes a judicial confirmation simulation she developed as an approach to feminist teaching. She also discusses the importance of active learning in the classroom, as well as simulation background and teacher preparation for the simulation. Students are asked to sign up for various roles in the simulation. These are:…