Contrary to culture-war rhetoric from the Right, there is more student religious expression and more study about religion in public schools today than at any time in the last 100 years. And contrary to dire warnings from the Left, much of the religion that goes to school these days arrives through the First Amendment door. Of course, this isn't to…

In this essay Bryan Warnick explores how rights to religious expression should be understood for students in public schools. Warnick frames student religious rights as a debate between the conflicting values associated with the Free Exercise Clause and the values associated with the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. He then…

Debate continues over the place of religious expression, including music, in public schools. In "Nurre v. Whitehead" (2009), a high school senior in Washington sued the superintendent for denying the wind ensemble that she was part of the opportunity to perform an instrumental version of "Ave Maria" at her commencement ceremony due to its…

This article aims to "modernize" the current legal debate over inequitable public school funding at the state and local level. The 1973 Supreme Court case of "San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez" established precedent, allowing for property-tax based education funding programs at the state-level--a major source…

This study examined federal and state court decisions related to student Fourth Amendment rights following the "New Jersey v. T.L.O." ruling in 1985. There has been minimal research in judicial treatment of students' Fourth Amendment rights across regions of the country and less to what extent regional rulings implicitly or explicitly…

Non-individualized (so-called "random") drug testing in public schools presents issues of Constitutional law on both the federal and state levels, particularly with regard to citizens' freedom from "unreasonable searches and seizures." The trend toward increasing acceptance of such testing by the courts (and particularly the U.S. Supreme Court)…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the conduct implications of qualified immunity in allegations of deprivation of civil rights by public school administrators regarding the First Amendment-student speech. Methodology: Data were collected using the LexisNexis and JuriSearch online legal research systems, which…

The longest lasting and most intimate interaction with government for most Americans takes place in US public schools. The Court's choice to enter into the national religious debate intensified the rhetoric and polarized many Americans into opponents and proponents of increasing religious instruction in public schools. This work narrates the…

In this article, we describe the multiple phases of a project that was constructed around the real case of a young Muslim student who wished to be exempted from coeducational physical education on religious grounds. When the school refused her initial request, she decided to take legal measures which ended up in the German Federal Administrative…

This article provides some strategies to alleviate the current tensions between personal responsibility and freedom of speech rights in the public school classroom. The article advocates the necessity of making sure students understand the points and implications of the first amendment by providing a mock trial unit concerning free speech rights.…

This article discusses the regulation of teacher dress and its intersection with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, individual State Religious Garb Statutes, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the midst of an attempt by Arizona's legislature and top education official to shut down ethnic-studies courses in the Tucson Unified School District, students at Tucson High Magnet School are flocking to the courses this school year. School district officials say enrollment in Mexican-American studies in Tucson Unified's 14 high schools has…

Legal scholars rarely focus on student First Amendment rights, and general public understanding of the extent of these rights is vague at best. While media scholars have focused much attention on newspaper coverage of more mainstream issues, no notable attention has been given to examining the way news media cover student First Amendment rights.…

Charter schools, which are public schools of choice, are typically operated as not-for-profit organizations, essentially functioning as independent districts consisting of single schools, by private groups including parents either independently or occasionally in conjunction with public institutions such as universities. In return for being…

Strip searches should be considered searches of last resort based on the intrusive nature of the search and the resulting impact it may have on a student. It is well established by the courts that as the intrusiveness of the search intensifies, the standard of the Fourth Amendment reasonably approaches probable cause which is a higher standard…