A new argument is made for school finance equalization, based not on "equal protection" or "equal educational opportunity," but on constitutional requirements for tax equity in New Hampshire. Since inequalities in school finance are a taxation problem, they call for tax reform. The analyses rest on four points: (1) that…

A questionnaire survey of 42 principals, 61 newspaper advisers, and 48 student editors from 126 secondary schools was conducted concerning their knowledge of communication law in relation to freedom of the press under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Relevant court decisions were selected and the circumstances of ten…

A review of 16 Federal Court of Appeals cases indicates the impact of the "Connick v. Myers" case on the nature of freedom of speech in public organizations. The case involved the firing of an assistant district attorney for circulating a job satisfaction survey after she was transferred to a less desirable section of the courts. Since…

Testimony is presented on the extension of those provisions of the Voting Rights Act which are due to expire later in 1975. The testimony describes the facts and reasoning which support President Ford's recommended Bill, H.R.2148. Also discussed are H.R.'s939, 3247 and 3501. The latter two bills propose that additional changes should be made in…

In his presentation at the start of the seminar, the author argues that the total commitment of civil rights groups to school integration as the sole means for enabling black children to obtain the "equal educational opportunity" guaranteed them by the Supreme Court is not only obsolete policy, but reflects a wasteful, dangerous and demeaning…

This paper provides legal information about the role of physical conduct in student-teacher, teacher-teacher, and administrator-teacher roles. The two legal theories that pertain to physical conduct in the schools are found in Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 and 42 U.S.C. (1983) for violations of due process and equal protection…

The core civic ideas that helped form a consensus around a United States Constitution in 1787 are the seeds that produce the civic culture of the United States today. Constitutionalism, republicanism, communitarianism, and classical liberalism were related ideas at the center of U.S. civic culture in the 1780s. Two hundred years later, with some…

Legal employment test precedent cited by courts and employment-related law cited by plaintiffs during teacher certification test (TCT) decisions are discussed to determine their pertinence to test content validity issues. The two main documents involved in such litigation are the "Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures"…

Policy is developed at many levels in the educational bureaucracy and is influenced by many agencies and groups. Few policies or deliberations, however, are related to any other policies or agencies, and most policies are developed to speak only to a particular goal or problem in a particular educational setting. There is no agreement on the…

Information about the French policy of government aid to private schools is presented in this report to promote understanding in the United States of the pluralist dilemma raised by the private school aid issue. An historical longitudinal policy evaluation involved document analysis and interviews with 16 French policy actors. The French policy is…

Public opinion polls about freedom of speech issues during a 30-year period (1937-70) were compared with Supreme Court decisions for the same period to determine the effects of public sentiment on judicial decision making. Two-thirds of the decisions conformed to a constitutionality model (that the Court should always uphold the First Amendment…

In 1985 the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that a Costa Rican statute requiring journalists to be licensed violates the American Convention on Human Rights and, by extension, all human rights conventions. Though press freedom advocates hailed it as a major triumph for freedom of expression, the court's ruling was only advisory and has…

This report on a preventive law institute held in Texas in 1981 includes an introduction, three papers, a summary of discussions, and a concluding statement. In the introduction Christiane Hyde Citron defines preventive law as decision making that takes constitutional and case law into consideration and that includes four basic steps: (1)…

Several Supreme Court decisions in the 1970s have rejected constitutional arguments aimed at eliminating exclusionary zoning and growth management schemes which allegedly maintain existing problems of racial and income segregation in major metropolitan areas. These decisions have led observers to conclude that the Supreme Court has greatly…

The case, "New Jersey v. Shelton College," is analyzed using the briefs of both parties, the judicial opinions, and the relevant literature. The case is a classic church-state confrontation likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The college is an instructional offshoot of the fundamentalist Bible Presbyterian Church. In 1971, after a…