New Title IX regulations issued by the Department of Education expand the types of sexual harassment schools must address and give schools greater flexibility in how they handle hearings. But the Supreme Court's recent ruling in "Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo" expands courts' roles in how federal agencies interpret and enforce…

Ethnography is an exceptionally difficult subject to teach and learn in a classroom setting. This article, written by an ethnography professor and five graduate ethnography students, reflects on how a short-term and collectively executed fieldwork study can help alleviate this problem. Within three months, we logged over 100 hours of observations…

In this article, I detail how I revised a social foundations of education course to center major Supreme Court cases relating to K-12 public schools. Scholars in social foundations of education have articulated a vision for the field that fosters and promotes democracy and democratic dispositions. Focusing on the Supreme Court in a social…

A pioneer for women's rights and a prominent pop culture icon in a striking white collar, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is best known for her work on the bench; her fiery dissents and scathing arguments are legendary. Ginsburg's legal work in the 1970s marked a major advancement for women's rights, driven by the novel legal strategy she developed to…

In "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" (2022), the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent regarding the federal right to an abortion for people who can carry pregnancies. This case has substantial significance for the education field, directly affecting school- and college-age marginalized students who can carry…

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…

When President Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court, it seemed like a major civil rights victory. But that victory could feel like a bitter irony this fall, when the high court hears two cases that will likely obliterate affirmative action. If Jackson gets approved by the Senate, she will probably be making two…

The 2018-19 Supreme Court term concluded with a number of unanswered questions: What is the fate of the "citizenship question" on the 2020 census? What will the developing Supreme Court jurisprudence of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh look like in the near future? How will Chief Justice Roberts continue to evolve as the "swing"…

In "Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College ("SFFA")," the United States Supreme Court revisited an issue that had been litigated before it twenty years earlier. In two separate cases brought against the University of Michigan, the issue was whether it was a violation of the Constitution…

Last November, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on whether the administration could rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), with the fate of over 650,000 DACA recipients in the balance. Under federal law, DACA recipients cannot access federal financial aid, so most rely on a mix of private scholarships, state or institutional…

Even though special education law is covered in most teacher and administrative certification programs, it is an area that is continually evolving. The results of the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case "Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District" will have a lasting impact on the future of special education guidelines; the outcomes of this…

Different from more traditional policy-making avenues, the courts provide an antipolitical arena that does not require broad agreement from various constituents for policy enactment. Seeking to guide court decisions on these policy issues, individuals and organizations have filed "amicus" briefs that increasingly include social science…

In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled on a special education case Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District. In this important case, the High Court addressed the degree of educational benefit necessary for a school district to fulfill the requirements for a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act…

In the early 1990s, the Supreme Court established standards to facilitate the release of school districts from racial desegregation orders. Over the next two decades, federal courts declared almost half of all districts under court order in 1991 to be "unitary"--that is, to have met their obligations to eliminate dual systems of…

Two Supreme Court cases have served to frame our legal rights and responsibilities regarding a Free Appropriate Public Education for students in our music classrooms and ensembles. This article serves as record of the two cases and their merits, according to the Supreme Court, as well as the actions recommended based on the court decisions.