The author reports on the ruling of a divided appellate court that held that the state law unconstitutionally made it harder for minorities to seek preferences than for other groups. The court struck down a voter-passed ban on the use of race-conscious admissions by Michigan's public colleges, holding that the measure had unconstitutionally put…

In this article, I show that the intersection between education policy and immigration law in the United States sustains a permanent underclass and reinforces the deliberate disenfranchisement of students without authorized immigration status. I critically analyze the Supreme Court case "Plyler s. Doe", and I suggest the DREAM Act as a means for…

On December 21, 1911, Fremont Weeks, an employee of the Adams Express Company, was arrested while on the job at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. Police suspected that Weeks was selling and "transmitting chances" in a lottery, which at the time was considered gambling, an illegal action in Missouri. While Weeks was being held at…

In June 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that video games enjoy full free speech protections and that the regulation of violent game sales to minors is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court also referred to psychological research on violent video games as "unpersuasive" and noted that such research contains many methodological flaws.…

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.…

The Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution holds that states must provide due process and equal protection to those with a life, liberty, or property right. College students have a property and liberty interest in the public education that they receive and the courts require notice and hearing before a deprivation of one of these…

A case pending in a federal court of appeals in California may clarify a surprisingly murky question: Do faculty members at public universities enjoy a special privilege to speak freely about institutional matters, or, as far as the First Amendment is concerned, are they just another category of government hirelings? Juan Hong, a professor of…

Many college officials have criticized Blackboard Inc. for its patent on its course-management system, arguing that the patent is overly broad and seems to cover the entire concept of online learning. Critics of Blackboard and other companies that have patents on learning technology are welcoming a recent Supreme Court ruling that they hope may…

Counselor educators today are faced with a difficult dilemma. They are mandated to dismiss students they judged to be unfit and irremediable, yet they risk legal action whenever executing a student dismissal decision. Their duty to protect the public must be weighed against the liabilities of costly litigation to institutions, programs, and…

Southern Methodist University has released the terms of its agreement with the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation to house the president's official library and museum. To some faculty members, the most troubling element of the project is a conservative policy institute that will be affiliated with the library and museum. Unlike similar…

Since President Bush named Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court, speculation has run high as to where the new court may be headed. Citing three recent cases ("Morse v. Frederick", "Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc." and "Garcetti v.…

The Supreme Court first affirmed the importance of academic freedom in 1957. Yet in subsequent cases, First Amendment precedent has displaced the concept of academic freedom to resolve disputes among competing interests on public campuses, primarily in favor of institutions. This paper draws on the concepts of path dependence and policy space to…

The Yearbook of Education Law contains analyses of the previous year's federal and state court decisions that affect private and public elementary and secondary schools and higher education. The Yearbook provides summaries and analyses of relevant state appellate and federal trial and appellate court cases. Contents include: (1) Employees; (2)…

This article reviews federal case law that address a college instructor's right to academic freedom over classroom activities. This review shows that the federal courts have defined a college instructor's academic freedom rights narrowly in terms of the instructor's classroom activities. Institutions have a great deal of latitude to regulate an…

In 2005, the United States Supreme Court rendered a closely divided opinion that extends the protections against discrimination provided by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to include a private cause of action for retaliation in "Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education." Therefore, "whistleblowers," or employees who report allegedly…