Support for student expression and First Amendment attitudes were measured among Missouri high school principals (n = 86). Findings demonstrated that the third-person effect was a significant predictor of these attitudes. The more principals perceived mass media to affect others over themselves, the less supportive they were for student free…

In the five hundred years of European and American globalization of the world, seldom have Indigenous peoples been invited to a constitutional convention and first legislature to express their perspectives and concerns. Rarely in the five-hundred-year history of the European and American colonization of the world were the rights of the Indigenous…

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…

Many of the recent legal decisions regarding public employee expression, particularly in electronic environments, run counter to the culture being facilitated by the Internet. This article uses a legal analysis to examine recent decisions and then considers those legal positions within the context of digital expression. (Contains 2 notes.)

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…

As schools across the country face increasing fiscal restraints, school library professional positions are being eliminated at an alarming rate. As a result, many school librarians are becoming the only certified library professional in a district, serving multiple schools and grade levels. Suddenly, each is a solo librarian. As a solo librarian…

This article investigates the issues surrounding teachers' use of social networking media and their First Amendment rights. It focuses on the need to develop a school district policy outlining specific guidelines for the use of technology and social networking. It also focuses on the changing world of technology and social networking as well as…

On December 21, 1911, Fremont Weeks, an employee of the Adams Express Company, was arrested while on the job at Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. Police suspected that Weeks was selling and "transmitting chances" in a lottery, which at the time was considered gambling, an illegal action in Missouri. While Weeks was being held at…

The latest episode in the long-running struggle for control of the Constitution, and the political power that goes with it, is playing out in the federal courts in California. The contending philosophies are originalism, which holds that the Constitution should be read as it was originally understood by the framers and ratifiers, and the congeries…

The federal government's role in PreK-12 education has long been contentious and continues to evolve. Many have written about education governance, but few have attempted to define an appropriate role for the federal government. That is the core purpose of this essay. The authors articulate a set of principles to guide the federal role in…

Recent efforts to change the teaching profession and teacher preparation include a number of innovations to use portfolio assessment, value added measures (VAM), accountability metrics and other corporate education reform ideas. These approaches may provoke considerable potential legal consequences. Traditional constitutional and civil rights…

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…

This article features two documents which can serve as a starting point for a lesson on public service while students debate the amount of pay that public servants should receive. These are: (1) the printed draft of the Constitution showing George Washington's handwritten corrections that eliminated state payments and included the phrase "to be…

This article discusses whether school officials or districts can be held liable for student suicides. Generally speaking, there are two legal theories that underlie suicide-related lawsuits: (1) negligence--a claim that the school failed to uphold a particular duty to the student and that such failure contributed to the student's death (legally…

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…