The purpose of the research was to provide practitioners in the public schools with an empirical basis for their efforts to find the proper place of religious ritual and instruction in the school setting. This paper analyzes two Supreme Court decisions regarding prayer and Bible reading in the public schools: (1) "Engel v. Vitale"; and…

We do not yet know for certain whether desegregation works because the goals of desegregation are so amorphous and the research conducted so far is inadequate to prove whether racial composition has an independent impact on student achievement. Desegregation is a complex issue whose nature is not known and may not be discovered because attempts to…

The thesis advanced in this paper is that the American legal system is responsible for changing the course of public education and is causing two separate educational systems, one private and the other public, to develop. Court cases and laws cited show that generally the U. S. Supreme Court, the Congress, and state legislatures have left private…

In 1976, two California school districts, the Alhambra City School District (for elementary students) and the Alhambra High School District, were cited for noncompliance with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Lau v. Nichols, which requires public schools to teach non- and limited-English speakers in their own languages while they learn English.…

This paper examines what exactly an educational record is. The definition of educational record is central to how the provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) are laid out. In order to gain FERPA protection, a document must be considered an educational record. To set context, the paper describes FERPA as an act stating…

This paper is a presentation, in outline form, of the development of the "quasi-nonpublic forum," where cases involving student free speech push the envelope of what is acceptable under Constitutional law and what is appropriate/acceptable student behavior under constraints set by school regulations. Context is set by presenting court…

This paper examines legislation, court decisions, and state and local policies affecting the use of corporal punishment in schools, and speculates on the particular context presented by small or rural schools. There are no universally applicable federal statutes dealing with corporal punishment in schools. Decisions by the Supreme Court and…

In this speech the question of whether the federal government is holding itself to the same civil rights standards it enforces in the private and public sector is addressed. Problem areas upon which the Carter administration is focusing are examined. These areas include the failure to eliminate discrimination against federal employees, the failure…

The speaker examines the issue of the legal liability of individual school board members as it has arisen as a result of such court cases as Wood v. Strickland and Goss v. Lopez. The discussion includes questions of infringement on students' and teachers' rights and cases of school officials acting as individuals rather than in an official…

During the 1970s, courts repeatedly overruled acts of administrative censorship of high school publications, even when the publication in question included "earthy" language or attacks on school officials. The trend toward expanding students' First Amendment rights began in 1969 with the "tinker" ruling, which reaffirmed the right of three…

Recourse to the courts for resolution of conflicts has become increasingly frequent, particularly in matters concerning American Indians. Important to this upsurge is the commitment to Indian sovereignty and the awareness among Indians that their rights can be asserted and established in courts. The issues of Indian self-determination and tribal…

In "Martinez vs. Santa Clara," an Indian woman sought to overturn a tribal decision made by the Santa Clara Pueblo, in which tribal enrollment had been denied to her children. The case raised legal issues that are related to the Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA) and to the relationship of the United States Constitution to tribal law. The…

The focus of this paper is the extent to which the judiciary sets the tone for freedom of speech in educational environment, and in so doing, helps define educational institutions themselves. In particular, the paper examines what the federal courts have said about the roles and obligations of educators when dealing with the rights of public…

The "pig in the parlor" refers to a growing area of censorship. In this paper, "parlor" stands for public schools, and "pig" for speech that need not be protected if it occurs at an inappropriate time or place, i.e., if such speech is not considered to bear the "imprimatur" of the schools. A review of the…

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is empowered with a delicate balance of executive, legislative, and judicial powers, putting the Commission in a vulnerable position whenever its decisions are reviewed. This paper takes the position that a "super-regulatory" title is unjustified when applied to the legally sanctioned role…