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Justice Amy Coney Barrett is charting her own path on the bench

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Doe v. William Marsh Rice University

Fifth Circuit Advances Novel Theory of Liability for Anti-Male Discrimination.

Complaint Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Chica Project v. President & Fellows of Harvard College

Community Groups Argue Harvard's Legacy and Donor Admissions Policy Is Illegal Race Discrimination.

Speech First, Inc. v. Sands

Fourth Circuit Upholds University Bias Response Team Policies.

Roberts’s Revisions: A Narratological Reading of the Affirmative Action Cases

Angela Onwuachi-Willig

Three Hail Marys: Carson , Kennedy , and the Fractured Détente over Religion and Education

Comment on Carson v. Makin and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District

Justin Driver

T.O. v. Fort Bend Independent School District

Fifth Circuit Declines to Extend Fourth Amendment to Bar Corporal Punishment in Public Schools

Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L.

Monopolizing whiteness.

Erika K. Wilson

Doe v. University of the Sciences

Third Circuit Holds Pennsylvania Law Guarantees a “Real, Live, and Adversarial Hearing.

Kollaritsch v. Michigan State University Board of Trustees

Sixth Circuit Requires Further Harassment in Deliberate Indifference Claims.

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Area of Interest Education Law

Education law is at the forefront of questions about educational access and policy, governance of schools and teachers, financing, and student achievement and success. With the Education Law and Policy Clinic and many different courses to choose from, Harvard Law students can immerse themselves in this field’s legal underpinnings while gaining hands-on experience representing clients in need.

From Harvard Law Today

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Leah a. plunkett, education law clinic / trauma & learning policy initiative, research programs and centers, charles hamilton houston institute for race and justice, harvard law school project on disability, youth advocacy & policy lab, related courses.

Course	Term	Instructor(s)
	Spring 2025 Course	Crisanne Hazen, Michael Gregory
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Education Law Articles

Title IX Legal Manual . Provides an overview of the legal principles of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Last reviewed October 2023

Education Law Center Contents

Education Law Center
Discrimination Laws in Education
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Between 9:00 PM EST on Saturday, May 29th and 9:00 PM EST on Sunday, May 30th users will not be able to access resources through the Law Library’s Catalog, the Law Library’s Database List, the Law Library’s Frequently Used Databases List, or the Law Library’s Research Guides. Users can still access databases that require an individual user account (ex. Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law), or databases listed on the Main Library’s A-Z Database List.

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Law Reviews & Journals

The following resources for academic publications are useful in conducting a preemption check as well as researching your paper.

Online resources are often the most effective for finding recent journal articles. You can use Lexis or Westlaw to search for and retrieve the full text of many, but not all, law journals. For more comprehensive coverage of interdisciplinary education topics published in legal and non-legal journals, you can use online indexes to get citations and often full text for articles across all legal and non-legal journals available through the Library.

Lexis Education Law Journals
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Education Law Journals

This is a non-comprehensive list of journals that focus on both law and education issues. Note that many of these journals are available in a variety of databases with differing date coverage.

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal
Education and the Law
Education Law Journal
Education Policy Analysis Archives
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
Journal of College and University Law
Journal of Law & Education

Education Databases

Academic Search Premier Full-text publications from all academic areas of study, including the sciences, social sciences, humanities, education, computer science, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies.
Chronicle of Higher Education Provides online searchable full text access to the latest issues of the Chronicle and archives back to 1989. Also includes daily news, advice columns, current job listings, and discussion forums.
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) Database ERIC is a national information system funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences to provide access to education literature and resources. The database contains more than 1 million abstracts of education-related documents and journal articles going back to 1966. The database includes articles, reports, papers, monographs on education topics, and curricular items. Some 107,000 full-text non-journal documents are accessible electronically in PDF format. The thesaurus can help you do a more precise search. ERIC is available on the Department of Education website for free. Search keywords, then use relevant descriptors. Use quotations for phrase searching.
ProQuest Education Journals Indexes articles published in over 700 education journals, many articles are available in full text. 1988 - present.
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Last Updated: Jul 2, 2024 1:20 PM
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Education Law

“trying to save the white man’s soul”: perpetually convergent interests and racial subjugation.

The assumption that remedying racial inequality benefits only people of color while being costly to White people underlies many Supreme Court decisions. White people benefit spiritually and democratically from racial equality. Recognizing these benefits warrants a new theory of interest conve…

Who’s Afraid of Carson v. Makin ?

Carson v. Makin was yet another defeat for progressives in a brutal term. But just how bad was it? This Essay examines how Democratic lawmakers in Maine have already neutralized the ruling, teaching important lessons about how concerned Americans can best resist the Court’s conservative supermajorit…

When Religion and the Public-Education Mission Collide

Recently, the Supreme Court has chosen education as the primary stomping ground for rewriting Free Exercise Clause doctrine. It has framed education policies that prevented public funds from promoting religious indoctrination as discrimination. In the process, it has created a new victim—educational…

Racialized Religious School Segregation

Carson v. Makin has several implications for the future of school-choice programs. This Essay explores one possibility: an increase in sectarian schools participating in state-funded school-choice programs, causing new forms of school segregation based on race and religion and impairing the democrac…

The Once and Future Promise of Religious Schools for Poor and Minority Students

When Carson v. Makin allowed religious schools participation in educational-choice programs, the public-school establishment predicted dire results for marginalized students. This Essay responds to that prediction, exploring religious schools’ historical importance to marginalized students, the publ…

Proceduralize Student Speech

This Note proposes a new dimension for student-speech jurisprudence: procedure. How schools punish speech drives the lessons students learn, and the lessons students learn should drive judicial determinations of whether the educational value of a restriction is worth the First Amendment infringement…

Schoolhouse Property

Since the Supreme Court ’ s 1975 decision that students enjoy constitutionally protected property interests in education, most states have passed laws and regulations requiring schools to provide meals and health services to students. These services arguably constitute entitlements, requiring sc…

Complicated Process

Introduction I come to this important Title IX Conversation from a unique perspective. This is not because I was a federal judge for seventeen years. Rather it is because before my judgeship, I was a feminist litigator and a criminal defense lawyer. And from this vantage point, my concern…

For the Title IX Civil Rights Movement: Congratulations and Cautions

On September 25, 2015, the Yale Law Journal held a “Conversation on Title IX” that confirmed the existence of a new civil rights movement in our nation and our schools. The movement’s leaders are smart, courageous survivors of gender-based violence—virtually all of whom are current un…

A Winn for Educational Pluralism

**This Essay is part of a new Yale Law Journal Online series called "Summary Judgment," featuring short commentaries on recent Supreme Court cases.**

Over the past decade, scholarship tax credit programs, like the one at issue in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn , have emerged a…

Winn and the Inadvisability of Constitutionalizing Tax Expenditure Analysis

In Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn , the U.S. Supreme Court decided, by the thinnest of margins, that Arizona taxpayers cannot m…

The Common School Before and After Brown: Democracy, Equality, and the Productivity Agenda

120 Yale L.J. 1455 (2011).

In Brown's Wake: Legacies of America's Educational Landmark

By Martha Minow

New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 320. $24.95.

The Impact of Teacher Collective Bargaining Laws on Student Achievement: Evidence from a New Mexico Natural Experiment

120 Yale L.J. 1130 (2011).

This Note uses the 1999 sunset and 2003 reauthorization of New Mexico’s public employee collective bargaining law to estimate the causal effect of teacher collective bargaining on student achievement. This Note finds that mandatory teacher bargaining laws increase the pe…

Confronting the Seduction of Choice: Law, Education, and American Pluralism

120 Yale L.J. 814 (2011).

School choice policies, which allow parents to select among a range of options to satisfy compulsory schooling for their children, have arisen from five periods of political and legal struggle. This Feature considers the shape of school choice that emerged in the 1920s ed…

Tinker ’s Tenure in the School Setting: The Case for Applying O’Brien to Content-Neutral Regulations

Popular constitutionalism, civic education, and the stories we tell our children.

118 Yale L.J. 948 (2009).

This Note analyzes a set of constitutional stories that has not been the subject of focused study—the constitutional stories we tell our schoolchildren in our most widely used high school textbooks. These stories help reinforce a constitutional culture that is largely d…

Is There a Place for Religious Charter Schools?

118 Yale L.J. 554 (2008).

Recently, religious groups have sought to become charter school providers. Scholarship and popular commentary dispute the desirability of this prospect. Religious charter schools can address unmet needs of religious groups and keep them invested in the public school sys…

When Parents Aren't Enough: External Advocacy in Special Education

117 Yale L.J. 1802 (2008).

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has been widely celebrated for providing millions of disabled children with broader educational and life opportunities. This Note seeks to improve the implementation of the IDEA by questioning one of its key assumptio…

"Home Schooling" in California

http://flickr.com/photos/chrisandjenni/431074814/

The "Bong" Show: Viewing Frederick's Publicity Stunt Through Kuhlmeier's Lens

Next week, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear argument in Morse v. Frederick. At issue is whether a public high school principal violated a student’s First Amendment rights by suspending him for displaying a banner reading “BONG HiTS 4 JESUS” at an outdoor school rally for the 2002 Winter Olympi…

National Citizenship and Equality of Educational Opportunity

Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Government: A Response to Goodwin Liu

Goodwin Liu’s inspiring article mines a rich vein of the history of American education. He revives and re-interprets congressional attempts to create a national system of public schools in the years following the Civil War. Professor Liu’s work is a signal contribution to the national movement f…

A Response to Goodwin Liu

Professor Liu’s article convincingly shows that the Fourteenth Amendment can be read, and has been read in the past, to confer a positive right on all citizens to a high-quality public education and to place a correlative duty on the legislative branches of both state and federal government to pro…

Federal Nagging: How Congress Should Promote Equity and Common High Standards in Public Schools

In two articles—one recently published in this Journal and another forthcoming in the NYU Law Review—Professor Goodwin Liu argues that the federal government should play a greater role in financing public education, should distribute more fairly among states its funds targeted to the neediest sc…

Education, Equality, and National Citizenship

116 Yale L.J. 330 (2006) For disadvantaged children in substandard schools, the recent success of educational adequacy lawsuits in state courts is a welcome development. But the potential of this legal strategy to advance a national goal of equal educational opportunity is limited by a sobering and l…

For-Profit and Nonprofit Charter Schools: An Agency Costs Approach

115 Yale L.J. 1782 (2006) This Note applies agency costs theory to explain charter schools' use of for-profit and nonprofit forms, and to suggest ways to make charter school regulation more sensitive to the differences between these forms. Borrowing from Henry Hansmann's "contract failure" theory of …

Civil Rights, Antitrust, and Early Decision Programs

115 Yale L.J. 880 (2006) Early decision admission programs--which allow a student to receive early notification of admission in return for a commitment to attend a particular institution--enjoyed explosive popularity at America's institutions of higher education in the 1990s. Schools use the programs…

Forbidden Conversations: On Race, Privacy, and Community (A Continuing Conversation with John Ely on Racism and Democracy)

114 Yale L.J. 1353 (2005) More than ever, urban school systems are segregated by race and class. While a chief cause of this segregation is the flight of white and upper-middle-class black families from predominantly black public schools, there is little discussion of white flight in contemporary edu…

Race as Mission Critical: The Occupational Need Rationale in Military Affirmative Action and Beyond

113 Yale L.J. 1093 (2004) In Grutter v. Bollinger, the much-anticipated case challenging affirmative action practices at the University of Michigan Law School, the Supreme Court held for the first time that "obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body" represents a compel…

Private Voucher Schools and the First Amendment Right To Discriminate

113 Yale L.J. 743 (2003) At the end of its 2001 Term, the Supreme Court settled one of the most contentious educational debates in recent history, ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that the inclusion of religious schools in a state school voucher program did not violate the Establishment Clause of t…

Renting Space on the Shoulders of Giants: Madey and the Future of the Experimental Use Doctrine

113 Yale L.J. 261 (2003) The experimental use doctrine in patent law protects alleged infringers who use patented inventions solely for experimental purposes, such as testing whether a device functions as claimed or re-creating a process to observe its effects from a scientific perspective. The judi…

The Political Economy of School Choice

111 Yale L.J. 2043 (2002) This Article examines the political economy of school choice and focuses on the role of suburbanites. This group has re- ceived little attention in the commentary but is probably the most important and powerful stakeholder in choice debates. Suburbanites generally do not sup…

Volume 133’s Emerging Scholar of the Year: Robyn Powell

Announcing the eighth annual student essay competition, announcing the ylj academic summer grants program, featured content, lock them™ up: holding transnational corporate human-rights abusers accountable, administrative law at a turning point, law and movements: clinical perspectives.

Articles on Education law

Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 articles.

State laws threaten to erode academic freedom in US higher education

Isaac Kamola , Trinity College

Finding objective ways to talk about religion in the classroom is tough − but the cost of not doing so is clear

Charles J. Russo , University of Dayton

How after-school clubs became a new battleground in the Satanic Temple’s push to preserve separation of church and state

Rights of transgender students and their parents are a challenge for schools, courts

Charles J. Russo , University of Dayton ; Maggie Paino , University of Wisconsin-Madison , and Suzanne Eckes , University of Wisconsin-Madison

Religious freedom and LGBTQ rights are clashing in schools and on campuses – and courts are deciding

Advanced Placement courses could clash with laws that target critical race theory

Suneal Kolluri , University of California, Riverside

Supreme Court to decide whether a public school football coach can pray on the field

Money, schools and religion: A controversial combo returns to the Supreme Court

Sexual harassment cases at school: Appeals court ruling could change how schools judge complaints

Scott F. Johnson , Purdue University

Can schools require COVID-19 vaccines for students now that Pfizer’s shot is authorized for kids 12 and up?

Kristine Bowman , Michigan State University

What college students need to know about liability waivers for COVID-19

Joy Blanchard , Louisiana State University

Kids have a right to a basic education, according to a new legal milestone

My child is staying home from school because of coronavirus. Is that illegal?

John O'Brien , Queensland University of Technology

More money for private schools won’t make Australia’s education fairer, no matter how you split it

Jessica Gerrard , The University of Melbourne and Helen Proctor , University of Sydney

Charter schools exploit lucrative loophole that would be easy to close

Derek W. Black , University of South Carolina ; Bruce Baker , Rutgers University , and Preston Green III , University of Connecticut

Betsy DeVos has little to show after 2 years in office

Dustin Hornbeck , Miami University

Colleges need affirmative action – but it can be expanded

Eboni Nelson , University of South Carolina

The Supreme Court, religion and the future of school choice

John E. Taylor , West Virginia University

30 years after Edwards v. Aguillard: Why creationism lingers in public schools

Why schools still can’t put segregation behind them

Derek W. Black , University of South Carolina

Top contributors

Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton

Professor of Law and Education Policy, Michigan State University

Professor of Law, University of South Carolina

Professor of Law, West Virginia University

John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education, University of Connecticut

Professor of Law, Purdue University

Professor of Education, Rutgers University

Associate Lecturer, School of Law, Queensland University of Technology

Associate Professor of Higher Education, Louisiana State University

Assistant Professor of Education, University of California, Riverside

Susan S. Engeleiter Professor of Education Law, Policy and Practice, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ph.D. Student in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Professor of Education, University of Sydney

Associate Professor of Political Science, Trinity College

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Education Law

I thank Bernadette Atuahene, David Baluarte, Derek Black, Lisa Schultz Bressman, Jessica Clarke, Shari Diamond, Jonathan Feingold, Jonathan Glater, Vinay Harpalani, Brandon Hasbrouck, Brant Hellwig, Alexandra Klein, Terry Maroney, Ajay Mehrotra, Elizabeth Mertz, Robert Mikos, Melissa Murray, Laura Beth Nielsen, Shaun Ossei-Owusu, Kish Parella, Asad Rahim, James Ryan, Christopher Schmidt, Christopher Serkin, Daniel Sharfstein, Joan Shaughnessy, Jennifer Shinall, Fred Smith, Kevin Stack, Alan Trammell, Joshua Weishart, Kevin Woodson, Dwayne Wright, and Ingrid Wuerth for their helpful feedback on early drafts and much needed collegial support. I also thank the Frances Lewis Law Center at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and Christopher Seaman and Allegra Steck of that Center for their generous research support and Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College for its equally generous support for the research leave that yielded this Article. Franklin Runge at the Washington and Lee University School of Law provided incomparable library support, and George Bouchard, Francisco Santelli, Russel Wade, Jon D’Orazio, Richard Hall, Michelle Koffa, Ashton Toone, and Wesley Wei provided invaluable research assistance. I would also like to thank the student editors of the Law Review. This Article also benefitted immensely from helpful comments and remarks in faculty workshops at the American Bar Foundation, University of Chicago Law School, Vanderbilt Law School, and Washington and Lee University School of Law, as well as in the John Mercer Langston Workshop.

Public education is “the most important function of state and local government” and yet not a “fundamental right or liberty.” This Article engages one of constitutional law’s most intractable problems by introducing “the public right to education” as a doctrinal pathway to a constitutional right to education process in three steps.

Thank you to Professor Emily Buss for thoughtful feedback throughout this process and to the incredible editors of the Law Review .

How far may a school district deviate from the services specified in an IEP and remain in compliance with the IDEA? In other words, how much of the adequate written plan is the student in fact entitled to receive? There are two existing approaches to failure-to-implement cases: the materiality approach and the per se test. This Comment argues that both approaches are flawed.

I would like to thank Professors Geoffrey Stone, Aziz Huq, and Genevieve Lakier for their guidance. Additional thanks go to the editors and staff of the University of Chicago Law Review for their thoughtful advice and insight.

This Comment argues that existing doctrine supports recognizing a student right to be free from political orthodoxy in public education. It proposes a burden-shifting test for vindicating that right.

For twenty-six days in 2020, all students in Ohio, Ken-tucky, Tennessee, and Michigan could claim a fundamental right to a “basic minimum education” under the Fourteenth Amendment.

For helpful conversations and feedback, I am grateful to Will Baude, Emily Buss, Travis Crum, Justin Driver, William Hubbard, Lucy Kaufman, Brian Leiter, Jonathan Masur, Wendy Moffat, John Rappaport, David Strauss, Laura Weinrib, and the editors of The University of Chicago Law Review .

Over the past three decades, legal academics have mounted a sustained attack on the traditional liberal idea that judges protect minority rights against majority will.

When the House of Representatives’ chaplain Reverend Patrick Conroy was dismissed in April 2018, theories as to why he was fired abounded.

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84 Special November 2017
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Education Law
Getting Started: Books, Articles & More

Education Law: Getting Started: Books, Articles & More

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Keeping Current: News + Blogs
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Introduction

Education Law is the term used to describe the application of the law in the school or educational setting. This branch of law includes federal and state statutes, regulations, and case law. Education in the United States is generally decentralized, with state and local governments largely responsible for educational standards (for a recent exception, see the federal No Child Left Behind Act ).

Education Law encompasses a wide variety of legal issues, including civil rights, disability, discrimination, separation of church and state, employment law, criminal procedure, freedom of speech and expression, and civil liability. Education Law topics of recent interest include charter schools , homeschooling , drug testing , and bullying .

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Search UB's Libraries' Catalog for books, e-books and other materials.

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Children with disabilities - Education - Law and Legislation - United States

Educational Law and Legislation - United States

Educational Law and Legislation - United States - Cases

Special Education - Law and Legislation - United States

Students - Legal status, laws, etc. United States

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Universities and Colleges - Law and Legislation - United States

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedia of Education Law by Russo, Charles J. Call Number: Online / Electronic Book: in Gale Virtual Reference Library Publication Date: 2008
Deskbook Encyclopedia of American School Law Call Number: KF4114 .D46 Publication Date: 1989 - 2008

Treatises, Hornbooks & Nutshells

Higher Education Law Policy and Perspectives by Alexander, Klinton W. Call Number: Online in Ebook Library Publication Date: 2010
Public School Law: Teachers' and Students' Rights by Cambron-McCabe, Nelda H., McCarthy, Martha M. Call Number: KF4119.M38 2004 Publication Date: 2004
From Schoolhouse to Courthouse: the Judiciary's Role in American Education by Dunn, Joshua M.; West, Martin R. Call Number: KF4119 .F76 2009 (Lockwood) Publication Date: 2009
Special Education Law by Guernsey, Thomas F. Call Number: KF 4210.G84 2008 Publication Date: 2008
The Law of Schools, Students, and Teachers in a Nutshell by Kern, Alexander Call Number: Study Aids: KF4119.3 .A43 2009 Publication Date: 2009
Education Law Stories by Olivas, Michael A. Call Number: KF4119 .E277 2008 Publication Date: 2008
Law and American Education: A Case Brief Approach by Palestini, Robert H. and Karen F. Call Number: KF4118 .P35 2006 Publication Date: 2006
We the Students: Supreme Court Cases For and About Students by Raskin, Jamin B. Call Number: KF4150 .R37 2008 Publication Date: 2008
Search & Seizure in the Public Schools by Rossow, Lawrence F. Call Number: KF9630 .Z9 R67 2006 Publication Date: 2006
College and School Law : Analysis, Prevention, and Forms by Prairie, Michael Call Number: KF4225 .P73 2010 (+ CD ROM in Koren) Publication Date: 2010

The Complete IEP Guide: How to Advocate for Your Special Ed Child - Siegel, Lawrence M. Call Number: Reference KF4209.3.Z9 S57 2009. Publication Year: 2009

A Guide to Special Education Advocacy: What Parents, Clinicians, and Advocates Need to Know - Cohen, Matthew . Call Number: Online in Ebrary. Publication Year: 2009

School Law - New York State School Boards Association . Call Number: KFN5648 .A73 H3

Education Law Journals

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal (also available on HeinOnline and in print at the Law Library)
Journal of Law and Education (also available on HeinOnline and in print at the Law Library)
ELA Notes/Education Law Association (available in print at the Law Library)
Yearbook of Education Law (Education Law Association) "...analyses of the previous year's federal and state court decisions that affect private and public elementary and secondary schools and higher education".

See more education law journals at UB.

Find Articles

Search these legal periodical indexes to identify relevant articles. Be creative with your search terms. Try very general as well as specific searches.

Online Legal Periodical Indexes:

LegalTrac (also Westlaw * and Lexis*, but known as Legal Resource Index (LRI))(1980 - present)

Online Indexes with Quickest CURRENT coverage:

Current Index to Legal Periodicals (CILP) on Westlaw * only (most recent 8 weeks)
SSRN (Social Science Research Network)(2000s-present) Working papers, accepted papers

Indexes in paper format:

Index to Legal Periodical Literature K 9 N319 (ref)(1888-1939)
Index to Legal Periodicals K9 N32 (Ref) (1926-1994)
Index to Legal Periodicals & Books K9 N32 (Ref) (1994-present)
Annual Legal Bibliography K 38 H365 (Ref) (1960-1981)
Subject Compilations of State Laws KF 240 S795 (Ref) (1960 - present) Identify law review articles and books that cite to state statutes on specific topics. Also on HeinOnline.

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(over 360+ UB subscription databases searched at once from ONE SEARCH BOX) Everything Search

You can also find relevant articles and other scholarly information by searching other online databases (subject listing) available at UB.

Recent Law review Articles

Terry Jean Seligmann, Sliding Doors: The Rowley Decision, Interpretation of Special Education Law, and What Might Have Been, 41 J.L. & Educ. 271 (2012).
Nancy Vinsel, Drinking and Driving School Buses: Zero Alcohol Tolerance for Public School Bus Drivers, 41 J.L. & Educ. 271 (2012).
Matthew Beatus, Layshock Ex Rel. Layschock v. Hermitage School District, 56 N.Y.L. Sch. L. Rev. 785 (2011/2012).
Scott Farbish, Sending the Principal to the Warden’s office: Holding School Officials Criminally Liable for Failing to Report Cyberbullying, 18 Cardozo J.L. & Gender 109.
Maren Hulden, Charting a Course to State Action: Charter Schools and §1983, 111 Colum. L. Rev. 1244 (2011).
Lesley Lueke, High School Athletes and Concussions, 32 J. Legal Med. 483 (2011).
Mary Kenyon Sullivan, Long-Term Suspensions and the Right to an Education: An Alternative Approach, 90 N.C.L. Rev. 293 (2011).

Subject Guide

Georgetown Law Library - Education Law Research Guide
Legal Information Institute: Education

Audio Visual Materials

Board of Education v. Earls by Voices of American Law Call Number: Law Koren AV Center / 3 Day: DVD KF228 .B63 B63 2005 Tecumseh, Oklahoma high school student, Lindsay Earls, was upset by her school district's policy of testing all students involved in extracurricular activities for illegal drug use so she challenged it in court. The case was testing whether drug testing of students in extracurricular activities violates the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
United States v. Virginia by Voices of American Law Call Number: Law Koren AV Center / 3 Day: DVD KF228 .U5 U56 2010 Steeped in history and tradition, the Virginia Military Institute remained all-male long after the state’s other public universities became coeducational. VMI’s leaders and alumni believed that a single-sex environment was essential to the school’s spartan "adversative" educational method. When a female high-school student complained to the U.S. Department of Justice about VMI’s policy, the DOJ filed a lawsuit claiming that the Equal Protection Clause required the state to offer the same opportunities to women as it did to men. The documentary tells the story of the case and the aftermath.
Massacre at Virginia Tech by Narrator, Mark Strong. Call Number: Law Koren AV Center / 3 Day: DVD HV6534 .B53 M37 2008 "Documentary looking at the worst school shooting in American history, when a lone gunman killed at least 32 people on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute at Blacksburg, Va., before taking his own life. Using extensive access to key witnesses, we delve into the mystery of how Cho, a young man with no criminal history, became a mass murderer."-- from BBC website.
The Road to Brown Call Number: Law Koren AV Center / 3 Day: DVD KF373 .H644 R63 1990 Presents the role of Charles Hamilton Houston in the cases which led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Brown vs. Board of Education. Gives a history of segregation, Jim Crow Laws, the NAACP and biographical information on persons influential in the desegregation movement.
Next: Primary Sources >>

The Supreme Court curbed federal oversight of schools. It's a big deal.

Eight current and former staffers at the u.s. education department expressed dismay over a recent supreme court decision they fear will blunt major regulations affecting k-12 schools and colleges..

Andrew Davis wanted protection after other students carved homophobic slurs into the door of his college dorm room.

Sydney Greenway hoped to avoid spending a week's grocery money on another textbook.

Tashiana Bryant-Myrick sought relief from the student debt hobbling her family's future.

For years, the U.S. Department of Education has been able to intervene to some degree in these scenarios. But a Supreme Court decision handed down just over a week ago reined in the agency's power to help everyday people. The news came as important deadlines loom for schools to implement key regulations, many of which now stand on shakier legal ground.

Three current and five former Education Department staffers, some of whom were not authorized to speak publicly, told USA TODAY they were dismayed by the ruling, which they fear will blunt the agency’s ability to oversee the American education system.

“I’m really, really nervous about what this means,” said Amy Laitinen, a former senior policy adviser on higher education in the Education Department and the White House. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that it will be bad for students and taxpayers.”

Education policy in the United States is primarily hammered out by state and local governments . When it comes to taking federal action – including to keep LGBTQ+ students safe, textbook costs down and student loan debt under control – Congress is generally slow to pass new regulations. (The main federal law overseeing colleges hasn’t been comprehensively reauthorized since 2008.)

Helping students often falls to the bottom of lawmakers' to-do lists. In that vacuum, the Education Department's role overseeing schools, especially colleges, has only expanded.

The department handles nearly $2 trillion in federal student loan debt and protects students and teachers from discrimination, including the antisemitism and Islamophobia that roiled campuses this year amid the Israel-Hamas war. During the Obama and Biden administrations, the agency has demonstrated a greater willingness to clamp down on predatory colleges . When it screws something up – such as delivering college financial aid, which devolved into a crisis this year – the ripple effects can be devastating.

All of that authority may now be jeopardized by the ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. On June 28, the high court’s conservative justices rejected a 40-year-old precedent known as "Chevron deference,” a standard set by the 1984 case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which gave federal agencies latitude to clarify ambiguous laws passed by Congress.

Read more about the Loper decision: Supreme Court curbs power of federal regulators, overturning 40-year precedent

On the heels of a different verdict that could preclude those same agencies from imposing fines, the justices dramatically recast the balance of government power away from the executive branch. Officials immediately began panicking that the Education Department might lose some of its capacity to address real-life problems through regulation.

Even before the decree was handed down, lower court judges in several states over the past few weeks were separately halting key Education Department policies, including rules affecting student loan borrowers, LGBTQ+ students and sexual assault survivors.

The National Education Association, the largest union for educators, warned that students nationwide would “pay the price” for the demise of Chevron deference. Meanwhile, conservatives and for-profit schools have rejoiced at the ruling, which they consider a long-overdue blow to big government.

“No agency has overreached more in exceeding congressional authority than the current U.S. Department of Education,” said Jason Altmire, the president of the group Career Education Colleges and Universities, which represents the interests of for-profit colleges.

Supporters of the verdict, including Republicans in Congress, argued federal regulators have become too powerful. They praised the Supreme Court for transferring more authority to the judicial branch to interpret vague laws.

The Education Department declined to comment directly but cited a statement from Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, who scolded the Supreme Court for “yet another deeply troubling decision that takes our country backwards.”

How the ruling will affect schools will depend largely on how judges handle forthcoming legal challenges. If the federal judiciary’s recent decisions are a harbinger of what's to come, the Biden administration’s agenda for American schools could be in serious trouble.

Vanessa Miller, an assistant professor of education law at Indiana University Bloomington, said that although federal regulations have long been vulnerable to litigation, the Supreme Court just made them even weaker.

“We don’t really know how it’s going to unfold,” she said. “That’s the complicated and scary part.”

Protections for LGBTQ+ students threatened

College brought Andrew Davis a sense of stability he had never experienced before.

When he arrived in the fall of 2020 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, about three hours from his rural hometown, it was one of the first times in his life he had consistent food and housing. With a generous financial aid package in hand, he knew he’d be relying on the school a lot.

By October of that year, that stability began to crumble. Other students started harassing Davis, who identifies as queer and nonbinary. A lot of the behavior took place outside his dorm room, where he said they would carve slurs into the door and dump their trash. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he could hear speakers blasting anti-queer insults.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” said Davis, now 22.

He filed a complaint against his peers under Title IX, a federal statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination on school campuses. The law was reinterpreted during the Trump administration in a way critics said bolstered the rights of people accused of sexual assault and harassment. Under former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the department raised the burden of proof for victims.

Davis’ case didn’t meet evidence standards and was dismissed, he said. He watched hopefully as the Biden administration set out to reverse those Trump-era rules while pushing to codify protections that would prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students like him.

In April, the Education Department finalized part of its long-awaited rewrite of Title IX, quelling the anxiety of victim advocates who had grown restless after waiting years for change. The new guidance would officially expand the statute to include sexual orientation and gender identity in its definition of sex-based discrimination.

The revised rules are supposed to take effect nationwide on Aug. 1, but lawsuits brought by Republican attorneys general in multiple states have placed them in a holding pattern in many parts of the country. A federal judge in Kansas, for instance, issued yet another preliminary injunction this month blocking implementation of the revised Title IX rules in four states. The ban applied to all the schools attended by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, too.

Shiwali Patel, a former attorney in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, now with the National Women’s Law Center, found the broad scope of that ruling troublesome.

“Opponents of civil rights and Title IX have really stopped at nothing,” she said.

Student debt relief in jeopardy

Tashiana Bryant-Myrick, a 36-year-old California mom, was the first in her family to attend college. She now works in higher education, advising young people from marginalized groups.

But her decision to work in academia came with a hefty price tag – she owes tens of thousands of dollars on her student loans.

“We can’t build generational wealth as a young Black family and try to plan for our future with our child,” she said, “because we really don’t know what is going to happen.”

She hoped student loan forgiveness would make her life easier, but she is uncertain about whether the Education Department's efforts will ultimately help her.

Since taking office, President Joe Biden has made student debt relief the centerpiece of his education policy agenda, forgiving roughly $170 billion for nearly 5 million Americans. In his State of the Union address this year, he credited himself with having “fixed” two major student loan repayment programs.

Those aggressive, controversial and wildly expensive actions have made a sizable difference in many lives, especially for older borrowers who felt stuck after paying back loans for years.

It wasn't long before the debt cancellation butted up against an unfriendly court system. The Supreme Court last summer struck down Biden’s most ambitious plan to provide $400 billion in debt relief to tens of millions of Americans. The now-defunct program would have canceled up to $20,000 in student loans for a broad swath of the population.

"This fight is not over," Biden vowed in a White House news conference following the June 2023 decision.

Since those roadblocks, the administration has pursued different avenues for student debt relief. Most of them, however, rely to some extent on the deference historically given to federal agencies like the Education Department to implement laws passed by Congress.

“At the end of the day, none of this is good for students,” said Daniel Zibel, vice president of the National Student Legal Defense Network, a group that advocates for borrowers.

Numerous legal challenges have set in motion a game of regulatory pingpong that paused – and then resumed – one of Biden’s signature student loan initiatives, which calculates payments based on borrowers' incomes. Miguel Cardona, Biden’s education secretary, has routinely referred to that program as the “most affordable repayment plan ever.”

Recent preliminary injunctions on the program issued by federal judges in Kansas and Missouri forced the Education Department to place about 3 million borrowers in forbearance, temporarily halting their bills. A three-judge panel has since granted the Biden administration’s request to stay one of those bans. Three states asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to take up the plan's legality.

The volatile nature of the litigation doesn't bode well for Biden's student debt relief agenda surviving the courts in the long run.

Biden administration ramps up college oversight

When Sydney Greenway was starting her second semester at Wayne State University in Detroit, she noticed a $50 charge on her account. Greenway, now 21, didn’t remember paying $50 for a textbook.

She soon learned that her school was enrolled in a program that allowed her to be automatically billed for certain course materials (the goal was to bring prices down for every student on a larger scale). Greenway was certain she could have found a used copy of the book at a cheaper price.

“It was a week of groceries for me,” she said of the $50 charge. “It’s not insignificant.”

Biden has made it clear to his advisers that the administration’s student loan relief efforts must be coupled with a broader strategy to bring down the soaring cost of college. A key tactic in that approach includes reining in often unpredictable expenses for food and textbooks.

One regulation the administration is championing would give students more of a direct say in how they pay for course materials. The rule prompted fierce pushback from the publishing industry, which has argued the policy will only raise prices for students.

Click here for a deep dive on textbooks: A fight over college textbook prices is leaving students unsure whom to believe about costs

Some of the main college oversight changes crafted by the Biden administration would tighten up college accreditation standards, particularly for online and for-profit schools. Others would eventually force schools to disclose whether their programs provide students a good return on investment. Another rule would prevent colleges from pocketing some of the extra federal money low-income students use to pay for food.

For any of these regulations to affect real people’s lives, the Education Department has to go through a lot of red tape. Though the specter of court challenges has always plagued government staffers who write those rules, they now worry their efforts will face even more scrutiny – and students will have to wait longer for the help they need.

Conservatives, for-profit advocates celebrate

Overturning Chevron was the culmination of a decadeslong push by conservatives to dismantle what they have deemed the " administrative state ."

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican on a congressional committee overseeing education policy, sent letters June 30 to more than half a dozen agencies, including the Education Department , insisting they explain how they plan to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

He gave Cardona’s agency until the end of next week to respond. The GOP senator said he was pleased to see the “unfettered power” of federal bureaucrats finally being curbed.

In the Supreme Court's majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that it's the job of the judicial branch of government to interpret the law. Deferring to federal agencies, he wrote, "is simply not necessary to ensure that the resolution of statutory ambiguities is well informed by subject matter expertise."

The dissenting justices disagreed harshly . Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court's liberal minority who worked in the Clinton administration decades ago, fretted over the consequences of leaving complex policy decisions up to judges. Shutting out the federal government’s vast reserve of experts would come at a cost, she warned.

“In every sphere of current or future federal regulation,” she wrote, “expect courts from now on to play a commanding role.”

Contributing: USA TODAY data and graphics reporter Sara Chernikoff

Zachary Schermele covers education and breaking news for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele .

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Legal Matters and Education Law

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Student Discipline and Due Process Law
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Legal Matters and Education Law by John Dayton LAST REVIEWED: 15 December 2011 LAST MODIFIED: 15 December 2011 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0023

Education law refers to the statutes, regulations, cases, and policies governing education and the resolution of disputes in educational institutions. These make up a vast body of laws regulating daily school operations and dispute resolution on issues from academic freedom to property tax challenges, student discipline to teacher contracts, and school lunch programs to tort liability. Schools are microcosms of the broader society, so nearly every legal issue in the broader society may also be found in schools. The citations included in this entry provide a useful overview of some of the most significant issues in education law and help the user to find further information on these and other issues of interest in education law.

Law changes very rapidly. Internet resources provide a very useful medium for finding the most up-to-date laws and general overviews. Among the more comprehensive online resources are the Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute (LII) website which provides free legal resources on all areas of the law, including education law. Washburn School of Law’s WashLaw Legal Research on the Web provides even broader coverage including more international legal resources. Drummond Woodsum’s School Law Resources provides a free online pro bono service that focuses directly on education law issues but also includes helpful links to many other online resources. The National School Boards Association website is dedicated to public school law, and includes a collection of current legal news, cases, and commentary on education law issues. Mark Walsh’s The School Law Blog is less comprehensive than the other resources, but very current, including ongoing postings and commentary from educators and others interested in education law and policy.

Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute (LII) .

Public interest website dedicated to the premise that “everyone should be able to read and understand the laws that govern them, without cost.” Website includes extensive legal materials in a user-friendly format.

National School Boards Association .

A free online overview of school law news, issues, and resources including “Legal Clips,” a free weekly update on legal issues sent to subscribers by e-mail.

School Law Resources .

A pro bono website offered by a private law firm, Drummond Woodsum. The website includes a useful list of essential links.

Walsh, Mark. The School Law Blog .

A frequently updated blog from Education Week that covers current issues in education law, provides useful commentary, and invites readers to comment on current school law issues.

WashLaw Legal Research on the Web .

A free service of the Washburn School of Law, providing links to international and US federal and state sources of law.

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

About Education »
Meet the Editorial Board »
Academic Achievement
Academic Audit for Universities
Action Research in Education
Adjuncts in Higher Education in the United States
Administrator Preparation
Adolescence
Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Courses
Advocacy and Activism in Early Childhood
African American Racial Identity and Learning
Alaska Native Education
Alternative Certification Programs for Educators
Alternative Schools
American Indian Education
Animals in Environmental Education
Art Education
Artificial Intelligence and Learning
Assessing School Leader Effectiveness
Assessment, Behavioral
Assessment, Educational
Assessment in Early Childhood Education
Assistive Technology
Augmented Reality in Education
Beginning-Teacher Induction
Bilingual Education and Bilingualism
Black Undergraduate Women: Critical Race and Gender Perspe...
Black Women in Academia
Blended Learning
Case Study in Education Research
Changing Professional and Academic Identities
Character Education
Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Children's Beliefs about Intelligence
Children's Rights in Early Childhood Education
Citizenship Education
Civic and Social Engagement of Higher Education
Classroom Learning Environments: Assessing and Investigati...
Classroom Management
Coherent Instructional Systems at the School and School Sy...
College Admissions in the United States
College Athletics in the United States
Community Relations
Comparative Education
Computer-Assisted Language Learning
Computer-Based Testing
Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Evaluating Improvement Net...
Continuous Improvement and "High Leverage" Educational Pro...
Counseling in Schools
Critical Approaches to Gender in Higher Education
Critical Perspectives on Educational Innovation and Improv...
Critical Race Theory
Crossborder and Transnational Higher Education
Cross-National Research on Continuous Improvement
Cross-Sector Research on Continuous Learning and Improveme...
Cultural Diversity in Early Childhood Education
Culturally Responsive Leadership
Culturally Responsive Pedagogies
Culturally Responsive Teacher Education in the United Stat...
Curriculum Design
Data Collection in Educational Research
Data-driven Decision Making in the United States
Deaf Education
Design Thinking and the Learning Sciences: Theoretical, Pr...
Development, Moral
Dialogic Pedagogy
Digital Age Teacher, The
Digital Citizenship
Digital Divides
Disabilities
Distance Learning
Distributed Leadership
Doctoral Education and Training
Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Denmark
Early Childhood Education and Development in Mexico
Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand
Early Childhood Education in Australia
Early Childhood Education in China
Early Childhood Education in Europe
Early Childhood Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
Early Childhood Education in Sweden
Early Childhood Education Pedagogy
Early Childhood Education Policy
Early Childhood Education, The Arts in
Early Childhood Mathematics
Early Childhood Science
Early Childhood Teacher Education
Early Childhood Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand
Early Years Professionalism and Professionalization Polici...
Economics of Education
Education For Children with Autism
Education for Sustainable Development
Education Leadership, Empirical Perspectives in
Education of Native Hawaiian Students
Education Reform and School Change
Educational Statistics for Longitudinal Research
Educator Partnerships with Parents and Families with a Foc...
Emotional and Affective Issues in Environmental and Sustai...
Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
English as an International Language for Academic Publishi...
Environmental and Science Education: Overlaps and Issues
Environmental Education
Environmental Education in Brazil
Epistemic Beliefs
Equity and Improvement: Engaging Communities in Educationa...
Equity, Ethnicity, Diversity, and Excellence in Education
Ethical Research with Young Children
Ethics of Teaching
Ethnic Studies
Evidence-Based Communication Assessment and Intervention
Family and Community Partnerships in Education
Family Day Care
Federal Government Programs and Issues
Feminization of Labor in Academia
Finance, Education
Financial Aid
Formative Assessment
Future-Focused Education
Gender and Achievement
Gender and Alternative Education
Gender, Power and Politics in the Academy
Gender-Based Violence on University Campuses
Gifted Education
Global Mindedness and Global Citizenship Education
Global University Rankings
Governance, Education
Grounded Theory
Growth of Effective Mental Health Services in Schools in t...
Higher Education and Globalization
Higher Education and the Developing World
Higher Education Faculty Characteristics and Trends in the...
Higher Education Finance
Higher Education Governance
Higher Education Graduate Outcomes and Destinations
Higher Education in Africa
Higher Education in China
Higher Education in Latin America
Higher Education in the United States, Historical Evolutio...
Higher Education, International Issues in
Higher Education Management
Higher Education Research
Higher Education Student Assessment
High-stakes Testing
History of Early Childhood Education in the United States
History of Education in the United States
History of Technology Integration in Education
Homeschooling
Inclusion in Early Childhood: Difference, Disability, and ...
Indigenous Education in a Global Context
Indigenous Learning Environments
Indigenous Students in Higher Education in the United Stat...
Infant and Toddler Pedagogy
Inservice Teacher Education
Integrating Art across the Curriculum
Intelligence
Intensive Interventions for Children and Adolescents with ...
International Perspectives on Academic Freedom
Intersectionality and Education
Knowledge Development in Early Childhood
Leadership Development, Coaching and Feedback for
Leadership in Early Childhood Education
Learning Analytics in Higher Education
Learning Difficulties
Learning, Lifelong
Learning, Multimedia
Learning Strategies
Legal Matters and Education Law
LGBT Youth in Schools
Linguistic Diversity
Linguistically Inclusive Pedagogy
Literacy Development and Language Acquisition
Literature Reviews
Mathematics Identity
Mathematics Instruction and Interventions for Students wit...
Mathematics Teacher Education
Measurement for Improvement in Education
Measurement in Education in the United States
Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis in Education
Methodological Approaches for Impact Evaluation in Educati...
Methodologies for Conducting Education Research
Mindfulness, Learning, and Education
Mixed Methods Research
Motherscholars
Multiliteracies in Early Childhood Education
Multiple Documents Literacy: Theory, Research, and Applica...
Multivariate Research Methodology
Museums, Education, and Curriculum
Music Education
Narrative Research in Education
Native American Studies
Nonformal and Informal Environmental Education
Note-Taking
Numeracy Education
One-to-One Technology in the K-12 Classroom
Online Education
Open Education
Organizing for Continuous Improvement in Education
Organizing Schools for the Inclusion of Students with Disa...
Outdoor Play and Learning
Outdoor Play and Learning in Early Childhood Education
Pedagogical Leadership
Pedagogy of Teacher Education, A
Performance Objectives and Measurement
Performance-based Research Assessment in Higher Education
Performance-based Research Funding
Phenomenology in Educational Research
Philosophy of Education
Physical Education
Podcasts in Education
Policy Context of United States Educational Innovation and...
Politics of Education
Portable Technology Use in Special Education Programs and ...
Post-humanism and Environmental Education
Pre-Service Teacher Education
Problem Solving
Productivity and Higher Education
Professional Development
Professional Learning Communities
Program Evaluation
Programs and Services for Students with Emotional or Behav...
Psychology Learning and Teaching
Psychometric Issues in the Assessment of English Language ...
Qualitative Data Analysis Techniques
Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Research Samp...
Qualitative Research Design
Quantitative Research Designs in Educational Research
Queering the English Language Arts (ELA) Writing Classroom
Race and Affirmative Action in Higher Education
Reading Education
Refugee and New Immigrant Learners
Relational and Developmental Trauma and Schools
Relational Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education
Reliability in Educational Assessments
Religion in Elementary and Secondary Education in the Unit...
Researcher Development and Skills Training within the Cont...
Research-Practice Partnerships in Education within the Uni...
Response to Intervention
Restorative Practices
Risky Play in Early Childhood Education
Scale and Sustainability of Education Innovation and Impro...
Scaling Up Research-based Educational Practices
School Accreditation
School Choice
School Culture
School District Budgeting and Financial Management in the ...
School Improvement through Inclusive Education
Schools, Private and Independent
School-Wide Positive Behavior Support
Science Education
Secondary to Postsecondary Transition Issues
Self-Regulated Learning
Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
Service-Learning
Severe Disabilities
Single Salary Schedule
Single-sex Education
Single-Subject Research Design
Social Context of Education
Social Justice
Social Network Analysis
Social Pedagogy
Social Science and Education Research
Social Studies Education
Sociology of Education
Standards-Based Education
Statistical Assumptions
Student Access, Equity, and Diversity in Higher Education
Student Assignment Policy
Student Engagement in Tertiary Education
Student Learning, Development, Engagement, and Motivation ...
Student Participation
Student Voice in Teacher Development
Sustainability Education in Early Childhood Education
Sustainability in Early Childhood Education
Sustainability in Higher Education
Teacher Beliefs and Epistemologies
Teacher Collaboration in School Improvement
Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness
Teacher Preparation
Teacher Training and Development
Teacher Unions and Associations
Teacher-Student Relationships
Teaching Critical Thinking
Technologies, Teaching, and Learning in Higher Education
Technology Education in Early Childhood
Technology, Educational
Technology-based Assessment
The Bologna Process
The Regulation of Standards in Higher Education
Theories of Educational Leadership
Three Conceptions of Literacy: Media, Narrative, and Gamin...
Tracking and Detracking
Traditions of Quality Improvement in Education
Transformative Learning
Transitions in Early Childhood Education
Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities in the Unite...
Understanding the Psycho-Social Dimensions of Schools and ...
University Faculty Roles and Responsibilities in the Unite...
Using Ethnography in Educational Research
Value of Higher Education for Students and Other Stakehold...
Virtual Learning Environments
Vocational and Technical Education
Wellness and Well-Being in Education
Women's and Gender Studies
Young Children and Spirituality
Young Children's Learning Dispositions
Young Children's Working Theories
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Education law : Journals

Journal of law & education Devoted exclusively to school law, with emphasis on critical current & emerging issues, serving both the legal & educational professions.
Brigham Young University Education & Law Journal Articles, review articles, commentary and book reviews covering legal topics within the field of education.

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Louisiana Wants the Ten Commandments in College Classrooms, Too

The culture war over religion in public education has mostly ensnared K-12 schools. A recently passed Louisiana law brings higher education into the mix.

By Johanna Alonso

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A chalkboard-like surface displays three of the Ten Commandments—"VI Thou shalt do no Murder, VII Thou shalt not commit Adultery, VIII Thou shalt not Steal."

The text of the Ten Commandments will be hung in every Louisiana public school classroom starting in January, pending litigation.

Geography Photos/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A new Louisiana law that mandates a poster-sized copy of the Bible’s Ten Commandments be hung in every public school classroom—including at colleges and universities—has already been challenged by nine Louisiana families, whose lawyers say they hope a judge will grant a preliminary injunction before the 2024–25 academic year starts.

In an interview with Inside Higher Ed , Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, called the law “an egregious violation of religious liberty; the school officials can’t force religious scripture on students as a condition of getting a public education. It’s unfair and it’s unconstitutional.”

The Louisiana law is just one of several recent moves by conservative politicians and education leaders to insert Christian teachings into public education; just this year, Oklahoma’s superintendent of schools ordered public schools to teach about the Bible and Texas unveiled a new elementary school curriculum that includes biblical stories and scenes . In both cases, education leaders argued that references to the Christian Bible are so pervasive in culture and literature that students benefit from learning about them.

Meanwhile, the lead sponsor of the Louisiana bill, HB 71, said during a debate over the legislation that her aim was to “have a display of God’s law in the classroom for children to see what He says is right and what He says is wrong,” according to the lawsuit filed against it.

Higher education has mostly been spared from state efforts to infuse public schools with religious teachings, but Louisiana’s law includes all 32 public colleges, universities and trade schools in the state—even as most of the rhetoric surrounding the bill seems to focus on young children and how and what they should be taught about morals and religion.

None of the state’s four higher education systems responded to Inside Higher Ed ’s request for comment on whether and how they are preparing to implement HB 71, which gives institutions until Jan. 1, 2025, to post the Scriptures.

40-Year Precedent

Mach said he is confident that the lawsuit, brought by the ACLU and three other organizations representing the plaintiffs, will be successful. But experts say many factors could contribute to whether the law will ultimately be allowed to go into effect.

A 1980 Supreme Court ruling, Stone v. Graham , struck down a nearly identical law in Kentucky, finding that there was no secular purpose for displaying the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. The Louisiana law attempts to circumvent that ruling by requiring institutions to display the Ten Commandments alongside a context statement that provides information about their history in public education, citing early textbooks that included them.

Republican lawmakers have defended the bill in the media on those grounds.

“Although this is a religious document, this document is also posted in over 180 places, including the Supreme Court of the United States of America. I would say [it] is based on the laws that this country was founded on,” Republican state senator Adam Bass told KALB , a local television station in Baton Rouge.

Ira C. Lupu, the F. Elwood and Eleanor Davis Professor Emeritus of Law at George Washington University, said the case will likely rest on that distinction.

“That’s what the argument is going to look like—does this have a secular purpose because it’s grounded in a broader view of culture and history? Or is that just pretext?” he said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed .

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He noted that while the law outlines other historical documents that “[affirm] the link between civil society and God”—such as the Mayflower Compact of 1620—it does not mandate that those documents also be displayed.

James W. Fraser, professor of history and education at New York University and the author of Between Church and State: Religion and Public Education in a Multicultural America ( Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016 ), said the connection between the Ten Commandments and American public schools is thin at best.

“There’s very little evidence that the Ten Commandments, as such, were in schools any time after the Civil War, which was a rather long time ago. My basic analysis of that history is that it’s nonsense,” he said. Within higher education, “I know of no example—even of religious colleges, even before the 19th century—where the Ten Commandments were posted. It may have happened, but it was not the norm.”

Impact on Higher Education

Even if the courts take into consideration the precedent set by Stone v. Graham, there is a slight chance that it wouldn’t apply to higher education, since the Kentucky law only included K-12 schools. A court could choose to uphold the law only for postsecondary institutions while striking it down for K-12, Lupu said. Moreover, concerns about whether the document would count as forcing students into a certain belief system, which is unlawful under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, would be significantly reduced among college students.

“At postsecondary, the likelihood that you’re going to be coerced into believing the Ten Commandments is God’s truth and God’s law is even less than for children,” Lupu said.

An unintended consequence of the law, if enacted at colleges and universities, might be that professors would have the academic freedom to discuss and critique the Ten Commandments and the classroom signage with their students, Lupu noted.

A philosophy professor, for example, could stand in front of his class and say, “‘I think the idea that God commanded those things are bunk … there is no god and I’m going to give an argument.’ That would absolutely be an exercise in academic freedom,” he said.

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, another organization representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against HB 71, said she is not worried that the courts will separate K-12 and higher education in evaluating the constitutionality of the law.

Though the Supreme Court has been particularly militant about protecting the religious freedom of school-aged children and their families, applying the law to colleges would violate other religious freedoms, she said. For one thing, it would signal the government’s preference for one religion over others, putting taxpayers’ money toward a faith that isn’t necessarily their own (though the law does note that schools that don’t want to pay for the displays themselves can accept donated funds or signs).

Fraser, who is also the pastor emeritus at Grace Church in Massachusetts, agreed that the law is unlikely to be enacted.

“This is clearly just performance legislation,” he said. “I don’t think it’s meant to accomplish some kind of change; it’s meant to make the politicians look popular. Of course, I’m really deeply offended by it both as a historian and as a religious leader. The United States has thrived on a separation of church and state.”

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Department of Education and Brown University reach agreement on antidiscrimination efforts

FILE - Passers-by walk past Sayles Hall on the campus of Brown University, in Providence, R.I., May 7, 2012. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced Monday, July 8, 2024, that it entered into an agreement with Brown to make sure the school is in compliance with federal law barring discrimination and harassment against students of Jewish, Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim ancestry. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

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The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced Monday that it entered into an agreement with Brown University to make sure the school is in compliance with federal law barring discrimination and harassment against students of Jewish, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim ancestry.

A complaint was filed against the university in December, according to the department.

Brown officials said the school voluntarily agreed “to clarify and enhance existing policies and procedures related to the resolution of discrimination and harassment complaints, including those related to antisemitism.”

The university denied that it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when handling matters alleged in a complaint which it said had been filed by the editor of an online media outlet with no affiliation with Brown or presence on campus.

As part of the resolution, Brown agreed to continue efforts to conduct nondiscrimination training for members of the campus community.

The Office of Civil Rights investigation confirmed the university has taken what it described as notable steps to support a nondiscriminatory campus environment including providing student and staff workshops on combating antisemitism and combating anti-Muslim hate.

According to the investigation, the school received some 75 reports of alleged antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim harassment against students from October 2023 through late March 2024, but appeared to take no or little action in response other than to acknowledge receipt of the reports, list support resources, and request to meet with the those making the complaints.

These reports include allegations students pointed at a Jewish classmate’s Star of David jewelry and yelled “Zionist pig Jew;” a Palestinian-American student’s roommate berated them about their Palestinian-American identity; and students blocked a Jewish classmate from attending a pro-Palestinian rally.

During the investigation, the university revised its practices including focusing on protecting the safety of its community, in particular the needs and safety of its students, faculty, and staff who are Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, Jewish, have ties to the region, and are feeling affected by current events.

“I commend Brown University for assessing its own campus climate and undertaking responsive reforms to comply with Title VI, in addition to the terms it agrees today to undertake in response to OCR’s investigation,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine Lhamon said.

According to Brown officials, many of the required actions outlined in the agreement were already underway by the school.

In some cases, the school agreed to further enhance and clarify its existing policies and procedures. In other cases, Brown agreed to expand previously announced efforts, such as broadening the scope of training on nondiscrimination and harassment, school officials said.

“The university is satisfied that the voluntary resolution with OCR enforces and reaffirms Brown’s commitment to strengthening our policies, systems and operations to ensure a campus environment where students, faculty and staff are safe and supported,” said Russell Carey, executive vice president for planning and policy, and interim vice president for campus life.

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New Florida HOA law in effect. What's the difference between an HOA and a COA?

A new law that went into effect Monday strictly limits how much control your Florida homeowners association has over what you do with your home, where you can park and how much you can be fined, among other things.

Does this apply if you live in a condo?

The law, HB 1203 , Homeowners' Association, was one of nearly 180 new Florida laws that went into effect on July 1.

Homeowners associations (HOAs) and condominium associations (COAs) are very similar, but there are differences. And what is a POA, anyway?

What is a HOA?

A homeowner's association or HOA is an organization that manages a gated community, single-family residential neighborhood or townhouse community and protects property values with various rules and regulations.

The board of an HOA, elected by its members, creates and enforces community-wide aesthetic standards to make sure everyone's architecture, paint colors, landscaping, fencing materials, upkeep and decorations are consistent and pleasing. HOAs also enforce parking restrictions, noise complaint policies, pets, home occupancy limits, vacation rentals and more to create a more comfortable living experience for the residents and their neighbors.

HOAs are also responsible for maintaining common areas such as playgrounds, pools, parks and clubhouses. It charges fees to be used for the maintenance of the community.

Membership is often mandatory when you purchase the home. Failure to keep up on your membership fees or pay any fines for cited violations may result in bans from common areas, liens on your property and even foreclosure.

While many homeowners appreciate the appearance and atmosphere of living in an HOA-run community, many have complained about harassment , petty and arbitrary rules , excessive fines and hard-to-reach board members or management companies.

How much are HOA membership dues in Florida?

In 2024, average HOA fees in Florida run from $100 to $350 monthly, according to Florida Realty Marketplace , but can jump up to $400 to $800 for higher-income communities or to fund projects such as swimming pools or clubhouses. HOA fees have been rising due to inflation and skyrocketing insurance premiums .

What is a COA?

Condominium associations (COAs) are often called HOAs for condos and they perform many of the same functions. But property ownership is different and membership fees are usually higher.

"In an HOA, residents own their property, but the association owns and maintains common areas, such as lobbies, pools, clubhouses, and gyms," said HOA management service Associa . "Conversely, in a COA, owners own their individual units and a percentage of all shared property, like tennis courts, pickleball courts, sidewalks, and parking lots."

COA membership is mandatory and fees cover maintenance and services for areas everyone uses such as lobbies, elevators, stairwells, parking garages, roofs and more. Some fees may cover utilities. Unlike HOA memberships, COAs may charge members different amounts depending on their percentage of ownership.

The new law, HB 1203 , Homeowners' Association, applies only to HOAs in Florida. But in some respects, it brought HOA restrictions in line with existing COA statutes. For example, as of Monday HOAs may not levy fines of more than $100 a day or $1,000 in aggregate for any violation, which was already the limit for COAs under Florida law.

How much are COA membership dues in Florida?

COA membership fees tend to be higher than HOA fees, as the Washington Post reported, but you tend to get more service for your money. Average COA fees in Florida generally ran around $350-400 a month, depending on the number of shared spaces and amenities.

However, COA fees have surged hundreds of dollars more a month in some areas due to astronomical property insurance rate hikes , hurricane damage, inflation, and the passage of SB 4-D , a bill that requires condominium and cooperative association buildings that are three stories or taller to undergo milestone structural inspections with new requirements, reserve funds to pay for future long-term maintenance costs and more.

What is a POA?

A POA is a property owners' association. Where HOAs and COAs govern small neighborhoods and individual buildings, POAs are formed to oversee and encourage development or protect underdeveloped areas in a historic district, specific areas or even entire cities. POAs can influence local policy, plan projects, handle business licensing, implement zoning restrictions and even organize community events.

Members can include residents and business owners or anyone who owns or manages property in the area. Membership may be voluntary or mandatory, depending on the POA, and also charges annual dues. If you live in an HOA or COA that's within the jurisdiction of a POA, you'll have to pay dues to both organizations.

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Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Trump National Doral Miami, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Doral, Fla.

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