It is important that teachers and administrators have at least a rudimentary knowledge and understanding of school law and how it affects their day-to-day classroom activities, since the courts have played an increasingly significant role in defining school policy. Decisions in school desegregation, prayer, public school financing, student rights,…

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the explicit approval of the Pope, declared that the Reverend Charles E. Curran was neither suitable nor eligible to teach Catholic Theology at The Catholic University of America. A report by the American Association of University Professors is presented. (MLW)

The contracts at four-year colleges with a 10-year history of collective bargaining from 1975 to 1985 were analyzed to determine whether the contracts negotiated in 1975 differed from those negotiated in 1985 in the following areas: appointment, promotion, tenure, termination for cause, retrenchment, class size, number of preparations, schedule of…

Targeted by the "California Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Affairs" in 1946, Frances Eisenberg subsequently was dismissed from the Los Angeles Public School System after 20 years of teaching. In 1947, the "Tenney Committee" introduced eight bills in the California legislature to prevent the teaching of controversial…

This paper is part of a collection of 54 papers from the 48th annual conference of the Education Law Association held in November 2002. It discusses teachers' rights to private and public speech. Specifically, it examines the rights of special-education teachers and other special-education professionals to advocate, privately or publicly, on…

The following are outlines presented by individuals at the Education Law Association 2001 winter seminar: "Academic Freedom and the Religiously Affiliated University" (the freedom to teach, research, and publish has never been--and still is not--without limits); "How Random and Suspicionless May School Searches Be" (random and suspicionless drug…

Two sets of Supreme Court cases are examined and their links discussed in the context of the recent Jeffries v. Harleston court case concerning the City College of New York. The first pertains to and reflects general protection of academic freedom in public colleges and universities; the second concerns speech rights of public school teachers and…

The five chapters of this book on teachers' need and responsibility to prepare themselves for criticisms and attacks on their teaching methods and materials deal with the scope of censorship issues, the significance of academic freedom, recent judicial rulings, school-community tensions, and case studies of censorship cases. The first chapter,…

Educators in four Canadian provinces were surveyed to determine their knowledge of rights in educational matters. There was considerable self-confessed ignorance among the 1,137 respondents, with only 5 of the 14 questions answered correctly by a majority. Differences in responses of rural and urban educators and teachers from denominational and…

By analyzing contemporary literature, this paper posits a federal role in what is seen as a trend toward "normalizing" college faculty positions and shifting control away from state and local jurisdictions. Three factors are seen as contributing to this shift. The first is the government's role in funding the hard sciences which has, in…

This guide for school district administrators presents workshop materials for administrators' mutual training. The guide assists administrators in preventing lawsuits by teachers against the district for violations of the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Section 1, the introduction, offers two objectives: to acquaint administrators with…

Classroom speech of public-school teachers is a messy subject with regard to the tension between various societal demands and basic rights of students, teachers, and others at school sites. The demands are not always consistent, and rights are subject to different interpretations depending on which court decision forms the underlying basis for a…

The concept of academic freedom originated in situations related to higher education. Although academic freedom may apply to professors, it is far from clear how, and even why, academic freedom applies to classroom K-12 teachers. This paper treats the balancing of teacher and school district rights in suits brought by teachers who claimed that…

This book is about the work of teachers in American secondary schools. It addresses the character of teaching as a job, teachers as workers, and schools as workplaces. The book's objective is to reexamine the character of schools as organizations and the implications for those working within these organizations. It draws on research from the field…

Examines the issue of a professor's First Amendment right to academic freedom vs. a student's right to an effective learning environment free from sexual harassment in a 1996 case, Cohen vs. San Bernardino Valley College. Also explored is the right of a public employee to free speech. Recommendations are offered to college administrators on…