A school board has established a policy requiring mandatory drug testing of student athletes and their coaches. The school has no reason to suspect that the Coach is using drugs. The Coach He is fired, and sues.
During non-instructional time, a middle school teacher is busy grading papers and allows a student to play a video tape for the class to view, without previewing the The video tape contains some indecent language and images, and many parents complain to the principal and school board about the incident. The teacher is dismissed, and in a dismissal hearing the teacher claims rights of academic freedom and that the tape had serious educational value. The teacher sues for reinstatement and damages.
A teacher is absent six or seven days per year for religious holidays. School policy allows three days per year for religious holidays, but prohibits using sick leave or personal leave for religious holidays. The teacher repeatedly asked the school board to adopt a policy that would allow the use of personal leave days for religious holidays, or to allow the teacher to receive his regular daily pay on religious holidays and to reimburse the school for the cost of a substitute The board rejects the teacher’s proposals, but agrees to allow adequate unpaid leave for the teacher. The
A teacher has been dismissed by the school board for sending a letter to a local newspaper in connection with a recently proposed tax The letter was critical of the way the board had handled past proposals. The board determined that the publication of the letter was detrimental to the efficient operation and administration of the school district. The teacher sues the school district.
An untenured teacher receives notice that her contract will not be renewed for the following year. She immediately goes to the principal’s office and demands that the principal tell her why she is not being The principal refuses, and the teacher threatens to sue to force the principal to provide an explanation for the nonrenewal.
There is no claim of improper motive, but the teacher insists that due process of law requires that the principal provide the teacher with an explanation for the
A teacher has been dismissed by the school board for sending a letter to a local newspaper in connection with an internal dispute over when the teacher’s lunch hour should be scheduled. The board determined that the publication of the letter was detrimental to the efficient operation and administration of the school district. The teacher sues the school
A former public school superintendent resigned from his position, because the public school refused to hire Christian teachers only. The superintendent opens a competing private Christian school hiring only Christian teachers. A qualified non-Christian applicant is told that the school only employs Christian teachers, and the teacher sues claiming employment discrimination under Title Who is most likely to prevail?
The state legislature has adopted a policy of hiring only S. citizens for public school teaching positions. A resident alien, who is married to a U.S. citizen and has been living in the U.S. for ten years but has declined to obtain U.S. citizenship, is denied employment as a public school teacher, and sues. Who is most likely to prevail?
A high school social studies teacher has been inviting various political speakers to his class to lecture students concerning a variety of political ideologies. The teacher invites an expert in Islamic studies and politics to speak. Subsequently, many parents contact the school board, complaining of the teaching of dangerous “terrorist” ideas in the The board votes to dismiss the teacher. The teacher sues.
The school board has passed a resolution requiring all male teachers to wear a tie while teaching, except during physical education classes, shop classes, or other classes where legitimate health or safety reasons make wearing a tie problematic. Several teachers have objected that this dress code infringes on their free speech rights by denying them an opportunity to express themselves through their dress, and that the regulation discriminates on the basis of gender. They refuse to wear ties, are charged with insubordination, and suspended until they comply with the school’s dress The teachers sue the school.
The Court in Brown ruled in favor of the plaintiffs because they were able to establish with clear and convincing evidence that physical facilities and other tangible factors in Black and White schools were unequal, thereby violating the Equal Protection clause of the 14th
If plaintiffs can establish that it is impossible to achieve a racially integrated system of schools without requiring inter-district transfers of students, courts can order these transfers even if de jure segregation in all effected school districts is not
The goal of desegregation is to effectuate conversion of a state-imposed dual system of racially segregated schools into a unitary, nonracial If de facto racial segregation is proven by plaintiffs, federal courts then have lawful authority to order a judicially supervised desegregation plan.
In Plessy v. Ferguson, Mr. Plessy had been removed from a “Whites Only” rail car because his dark skin made it obvious that he was an African-American violating the state’s “Separate but Equal”
In his dissenting opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, Justice Harlan indicated that he believed that the Court’s decision in Plessy had the potential to be as destructive as the Court’s infamous decision in the Dred Scott case.
Rather than overturn Plessy outright by recognizing that the Court had been wrong in Plessy, in Brown, the Court rationalized that the importance of education had increased and that new knowledge in psychology made the harm of segregation more
The S. Supreme Court has recognized that education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments.
By the time the Court issued its opinion in Freeman v. Pitts (1992), the Court had gone from the more aggressive earlier requirement to eliminate the vestiges of past racial discrimination root and branch, to requiring that the vestiges of past discrimination merely be eliminated to the extent practicable.
In Brown Board of Education (1955) ( Brown II) the Court famously ordered that school admissions on a racially nondiscriminatory basis begin “with all deliberate speed.”