The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Combatting Classroom Censorship." Contents include: (1) A Wolf in Sheep's…

For the second time in three years, the Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of a race-conscious admissions policy at the University of Texas, Austin. While the case, "Fisher v. University of Texas," raises questions specific to UT Austin, the Court's second review could change the ways higher education institutions across…

Discrimination is a structured way of abusing people based on racial differences, hence barring them from accessing wealth, political participation and engagement in many spheres of human life. Racism and discrimination are inherently rooted in institutions in the society, the problem has spread across many social segments of the society including…

Teacher use of social networking sites such as Facebook has presented some ethical dilemmas for policy makers. In this article, we argue that schools are justified in taking action against teachers when evidence emerges from social networking sites that teachers are (a) doing something that is illegal, (b) doing something that reflects badly on…

In 2003, the United States Supreme Court decided on two cases that involved affirmative action policies for admission to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Law School and the College of Literature, Science and the Arts. Those cases, "Gratz v. Bollinger" (2003) and "Grutter v. Bollinger" (2003) had implications for the…

Raising academic standards and eliminating achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students are America's prime national educational goals. Current federal and state policies, however, largely ignore the fact that the childhood poverty rate in the United States is 21%, the highest in the industrialized world, and that poverty…