Business law and legal environment textbooks typically devote a page or two to the tort of invasion of privacy, describing the four versions of this tort, including "appropriation of identity." The Clarkson textbook notes that "An individual's right to privacy normally includes the right to the exclusive use of her or his…

This article provides an up-to-date and comprehensive canvassing of the judicial case law concerning the responses to students with concussions in the public school context. The two categories of court decisions are (a) those concerning continued participation in interscholastic athletics, referred to under the rubric of "return to play"…

One central controversy with youth sexting is that adolescents may be prosecuted under child pornography and obscenity statutes that were originally created to protect children from sexual exploitation perpetrated by adults and do not adequately address consensual teen behavior. Due to this concern, many states have implemented laws specifically…

The author reports on the ruling of a divided appellate court that held that the state law unconstitutionally made it harder for minorities to seek preferences than for other groups. The court struck down a voter-passed ban on the use of race-conscious admissions by Michigan's public colleges, holding that the measure had unconstitutionally put…

According to the U.S. Supreme Court ("Island Trees School District v. Pico," 457 U.S. 853, 1982), the Constitution presupposes that the free flow of information between the government and the public is essential to maintaining an informed citizenry, which in turn is essential to holding governments accountable. However, local governments…

Last summer, California and Massachusetts became the sixth and seventh states--along with Hawaii, New Mexico, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maryland--to send a resolution to the U.S. Congress calling for a constitutional amendment to (1) end the court's extension of personhood rights to corporations, and (2) enable the government to definitively…

University administrators who have distance learning programs under their charge are on the horns of a dilemma. Given the growing litigiousness of copyright holders and the unsettled state of the law, it has become very difficult to establish failsafe administrative rules to guide faculty and student use of copyrighted materials. But the use of…

Arizona's variation on government vouchers for religious schools and California's prohibition on the sale of violent video games to minors present the top two cases with implications for education in the U.S. Supreme Court term that formally begins Oct. 4. New Justice Elena Kagan brings to the court extensive education policy experience as a…

On 26 September 2001, the Chino Valley School District, which is approximately 30 miles east of Los Angeles, signed a negotiated agreement with the duly authorized union representing the certified employees, the Associated Chino Teachers (ACT). The agreement provided that every member of the represented unit would become either a member of the ACT…

This article reports on the fiery California atheist who lost his bid at the U.S. Supreme Court to get "under God" stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance. Dr. Michael A. Newdow, an emergency-room physician with a law degree who represented himself before the Supreme Court in the high-profile case against the Elk Grove, California, school…

Pledging allegiance to the flag--and the "one nation under God" it is said to represent--has been second nature to generations of American schoolchildren. Yet few have had as much reason to reflect on the practice as those in Sacramento, California. Since March 2000, California's Elk Grove school district has faced a legal challenge to…

In August 2000, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of school children against the state of California. The suit, Williams v. State of California, alleged that the state failed to exercise its constitutional obligation to provide equal access to education for all students in the state by allowing deficient…

A case in which California's constitutional right to privacy is used to protect confidential peer review files is analyzed, and the case's significance and possible ramifications for discovery requests of peer review files are discussed. (MSE)

A California superior court struck down a Stanford University antiharassment policy, saying that it restricted students' free-speech rights. The policy had banned face-to-face insults that stigmatize students on the basis of such things as race, sex, or religion. California law requires private colleges to grant students the same constitutional…

Reviewing literature on educational finance and law, this paper analyzes the rationale for the recent school finance reform movement and recounts the movement's progress from 1965 to 1979. An overview of the problem discusses state equalization programs' ability to provide financial equity and the relationship of financial equity to equal…