Many commentators have noted that the 2010 Supreme Court term was without the "fireworks" of recent years and, therefore, this year the Court garnered limited media attention and national interest. Contributing to this limited attention was the fact that the term ended with no retirements or looming confirmation battles. In addition, the term's…

This policy brief addresses federal and state constitutional issues that arise when faith-based organizations participate in state prekindergarten (pre-k) programs and recommends safeguards to ensure that public funding of those programs complies with constitutional principles respecting the separation of church and state and freedom of religion.…

This article provides some strategies to alleviate the current tensions between personal responsibility and freedom of speech rights in the public school classroom. The article advocates the necessity of making sure students understand the points and implications of the first amendment by providing a mock trial unit concerning free speech rights.…

In recent decades, the environment has become a focus of intense national interest. Increasingly, individuals, organizations, and governmental entities have turned to the courts for resolution of environmental debates. Litigants in the courts must, however, clear the initial hurdle of "standing" to have their cases heard. In this article,…

Recent court rulings have challenged the long-held concept of academic freedom for faculty members. As an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Kevin J. Renken says he felt obliged to speak out about his belief that administrators there were mishandling a National Science Foundation grant to him…

Maintaining a safe, orderly learning environment is a significant challenge for education leaders, especially when students insist on bringing alcohol, weapons, and drugs into schools. To compound that challenge, educators who wish to uncover contraband must do so within the confines of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable…

The purpose of this article is to persuade legal studies teachers of the benefits of using works from other disciplines to illustrate the rationales for law, the greater context in which the legal order operates, and the relationship between law and society. The tangential benefits of using works from other disciplines are the enhancement of the…

The Supreme Court's landmark ruling overturning Washington, D.C.'s handgun ban could have implications for colleges that prohibit firearms on their campuses. Last month the court declared for the first time that the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep a gun, not just the right of states to maintain armed…

Enshrined in the First Amendment as part of the Bill of Rights that was added to the then 4 year old US Constitution in 1791, it should be no surprise that freedom of speech may be perhaps the most cherished right of Americans. If anything, freedom of speech, which is properly treated as a fundamental human right for children, certainly stands out…

Amy Jordan addresses the need to balance the media industry's potentially important contributions to the healthy development of America's children against the consequences of excessive and age-inappropriate media exposure. Much of the philosophical tension regarding how much say the government should have about media content and delivery stems…

This article presents a teaching case that involves the presentation of an actual incident in which a state commission on judicial performance had to balance a judge's First Amendment rights to protected free speech against his public statements about a societal class/group that were deemed to be derogatory and inflammatory and, hence, cast…

This paper seeks to remind the reader that U.S. law is based on English cases and precedent far more than most persons realize. Specifically, a 1791 pronouncement by the U.S. Supreme Court that the English court system provides the model for the U.S. Supreme Court is offered as evidence of the paper's thesis. Examples of the sorts of English…

When dealing with First Amendment free speech issues in the context of public libraries, courts have merely cited the supposition that constitutional public forum analysis leads to the conclusion that the public library is a limited public forum for the purposes of First Amendment analysis. By focusing narrowly on the issue of whether Internet…

Analyzes the United States Supreme Court's reversal of "Memphis County School Distruct v. Stachura," a District Court decision to compensate a temporarily suspended life sciences teacher for damages involving deprivation of his constitutional rights. Views this decision as one more obstacle blocking individuals' progress against…

According to Jay Worona, general counsel for the New York State School Board Association, "Balancing safety and student constitutional rights is not easy. It has to be a careful balance. School officials must be prudent and not overreact. But one part of the equation has to be paramount. And safety should be the primary concern"…