"State action" is a term used to describe claims arising under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act for which a private party is seeking damages because the state has violated that party's civil rights. Cases are summarized illustrating the doctrine's evolution over the past century. The 1875 Civil…

Three major Supreme Court cases concerning Bible reading and prayer in the public schools are discussed. The constitutional bases for the court cases are the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The former expresses that Congress may make no laws to establish or to prohibit the free exercise of religion and the latter provides that no state shall…

Indicates the Supreme Court's attitude toward the comparison of the racial composition of the faculty with that of the student body, the time Title VII came into force, and the use of applicant flow data in cases of hiring discrimination, but not what constitutes a relevant labor pool. (Author/IRT)

The Detroit decision may encourage federal courts to avoid costly and unpopular student reassignment plans in favor of compensatory education to remedy the effects of past discrimination. (Author/IRT)

Addresses the question of whether student prayer groups should be allowed to use school facilities. The Equal Access Act allows all noncurricular student groups to meet, whereas four federal appellate court decisions ban prayer groups on the basis that separation between church and state outweighs students' right to free speech. (WTH)

This is the 22nd in a series of yearly updates of judicial decision summaries for case law related to elementary and secondary education issues. One can use previous and future editions to track decisions on appeal or to see trends in case law. With few exceptions, the cases were selected from court decisions found in federal and regional…

This is the 21st in a series of yearly updates of judicial decision summaries for case law related to elementary and secondary education issues. One can use previous and future editions to track decisions on appeal or to see trends in case law. The cases included, with a few exceptions, were selected from court decisions found in federal and…

In 1998, the New Jersey Supreme Court directed schools in 30 poor urban districts to adopt a comprehensive school reform program by the 2000-2001 academic year. Part of this program involved delegating resource-allocation decisions to the school level, thereby increasing schools' effectiveness and productivity by bringing the perspectives of…

Discusses the applicability to school officials and school attorneys of the Supreme Court decision in Harlow v. Fitzgerald that an official's right to qualified immunity may be decided before trial and that an objective test is: Could the official reasonably have known that his conduct would violate someone's federal rights? (MLF)

Analyzes the unwillingness of the federal courts to view the traditional braided hairstyle worn by American Indian students as worthy of protection under the Tinker "symbolic speech" doctrine. Examines the legacy of the Tinker doctrine for Indian students and presents an argument for expanding this precedent. (Author/MLF)

Investigates the expansion of student due process rights and the discipline issues resolved by the United States Supreme Court. Considers lower court interpretations of these decisions and issues currently being raised. Suggests that legal cases which have nothing to do with discipline have affected the way school personnel view discipline.…

The principle that seems to underlie the Court's school desegregation cases is that racial criteria may be used to make one person better off than another unless constitutionally-recognized expectations of the latter person are frustrated. Available from University of Cincinnati Law Review, Taft Hall, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH…

In "Doe v. Plyler" the court unanimously held that the denial of a free public education to illegal alien children is a violation of the equal protection clause. Examines how the court came to its conclusion. (Author/IRT)

Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in "Davis" that a student can sue for damages if school officials know a student is being sexually harassed but fail to intervene. (MLF)

Compares the Supreme Court ruling in "Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith," involving the denial of unemployment compensation to two employees discharged because they ingested peyote, to "Wisconsin v. Yoder," mandating exemption to Amish parents of the state's uniformly applied compulsory…