This dissertation traces the way hair is framed in judicial texts about dress code policy in the U.S. between 1969 and 2023. Using 46 court cases from district, appellate, state supreme, and federal supreme courts, the study first considers how dress code is brought to courts over these 54 years, and the kinds of legal claims made in these cases.…

The U.S. and West Virginia constitutions acknowledge the right to free speech, which must be protected at public colleges, but Senate Bill 657, which became law in 2021, requires that public colleges protect "any lawful verbal and nonverbal speech." Furthermore, many private colleges also promise free speech to their students. However a…

The United States Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist. held that a local school district violated the First Amendment freedom of religious expression rights when it directed an assistant football coach to stop praying on the fifty-yard line of a high school football field after each game. In finding for the high-school football coach,…

A 2020 lawsuit involves a public school teacher who refused to address transgender students by their preferred names because of his religious beliefs. This case is particularly significant because it is the first K-12 decision that analyzes this matter. This issue has important policy implications for schools and students.

The past few years have seen an increase in partisan political attempts to restrict the public education curriculum and to portray some forms of public education as a social harm. Two targets are particularly evident: teaching about the history, policies, and actions of the state of Israel and teaching about the history and perpetuation of racism…

Background: Over the past decade, courts increasingly have considered cases that involve clashes between public, secular private, and religious institutions in education. Such clashes appear to have intensified as recently as the 2019-2020 Supreme Court term, and the confirmation of Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Court in 2020 suggests…

The purpose of this "Equity by Design" brief is to aid administrators in protecting sexual and gender minority students from discrimination and harassment. Specifically, this Brief presents Title IX's conceptualizations of sex and harassment to identify who is protected, and from what. Further, it discusses how to navigate backlash…

This policy memo examines some fundamental shifts, along with their real-world implications, within the past 60 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence, up to and including the current "Carson v. Makin" case. The Supreme Court is just a few small steps away from transforming every charter school law in the U.S. into a private-school voucher…

This article summarizes the applicable judicial analysis for cases in which special education personnel claim that their employing district retaliated against them for advocacy on behalf of students with disabilities. Providing examples of recent relevant court decisions, it traces the applicable essential elements and likely outcomes for such…