Education Law

1 State Dominates National Education About Bill of Rights & Constitution

As lawyers argue about the intent of the drafters of the Constitution and judges mull the issue before deciding civil rights cases, a little-noticed phenomenon also has significant influence on the nation’s understanding of the fundamental principles underlying American law. That is the influence of the Texas State Board of…

Feb 11, 2010 8:49 PM CST

Boy, 11, Charged with Felony over Alleged Pencil Attack in Math Class

A math class dispute among middle-schoolers in upstate New York led to a felony charge against an 11-year-old boy after he allegedly attacked with a sharp pencil a classmate who had annoyed him with offers of help. The unidentified suspect in the Sauquoit Valley Middle School incident was charged with…

Feb 10, 2010 1:17 AM CST

9th Cir. Revives Title IX Suit By UC Davis Women Wrestlers

Three women wrestlers at the University of California at Davis scored a major victory today at the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which reversed a federal district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants in a Title IX discrimination suit. The women had sought permission to…

Feb 9, 2010 12:34 AM CST

Grad Sues NYU Over Revoked MBA

Asserting a claim for breach of contract, a graduate of New York University’s master’s in business administration program has filed suit in Manhattan federal court over his revoked MBA degree. Ayal Rosenthal, 29, seeks a court order forcing NYU to hand over his diploma, reports the New York Post. A…

Feb 8, 2010 11:39 PM CST

Police Admit Error in Arrest of 12-Year-Old Girl Caught Doodling on Desk

Police and education authorities have acknowledged they may have used bad judgment Monday when they arrested and cuffed a 12-year-old Queens girl who’d been caught doodling on her desk with erasable marker. Junior high student Alexa Gonzalez wrote “I love my friends Abby and Faith” and “Lex was here 2/1/10”…

Feb 5, 2010 7:02 PM CST

3rd Cir. Creates ‘Chaos’ with Conflicting Rulings on Student MySpace Principal Parodies

Two panels in different districts of one federal appeals court made apparently conflicting rulings yesterday in cases over students in two separate Pennsylvania school districts who posted similar parodies of their principals on MySpace, using computers at their homes. One divided three-judge panel in the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued…

Feb 5, 2010 6:09 PM CST

Higher Ed Board Approves Plan for Public Mass. Law School

Today the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education unanimously approved a plan to merge the unaccredited Southern New England School of Law with the University of Massachusetts. The vote paves the way for the state’s first public law school, according to the Associated Press, the Herald News of Fall River and…

Feb 2, 2010 6:40 PM CST

Lawmaker to Mass. AG: Law Schools May Be Misusing Public Funds to Fight Competitor

In a new escalation of an ongoing controversy about whether a non-ABA-accredited law school should merge with the University of Massachusetts, a state lawmaker is calling for an investigation of potential antitrust issues. Three competitors of Southern New England School of Law may be misusing public funds to lobby against…

Jan 30, 2010 2:35 AM CST

Mom Makes Federal Case Out of Latest Student Hairstyle Rights Fight

Headlines about school district battles over student hairstyles are now focusing on Ohio, where a mother of an 11-year-old boy says he was publicly humiliated by a teacher and a classroom aide and has filed a federal lawsuit over their alleged “gender-based harassment” of the boy. When the unidentified boy…

Jan 28, 2010 8:20 PM CST

DOJ Settles Kindle E-Book Reader Complaints With 4 Colleges

Encouraging college students to use Kindle e-book readers might not seem like a highway to high-profile federal litigation. But that’s what led to a just-announced settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and three well-known institutions of higher learning. Because the Kindle DX electronic reader offered by Amazon as part…

Jan 13, 2010 10:38 PM CST

Judge OKs Duty-to-Warn Suits in Va. Tech Shootings, Nixes Immunity Claim

Rejecting, at least for now, a defense claim that sovereign immunity prevents the families of victims of the Virginia Tech shootings from suing employees of the government-run institution, a Virginia judge has OK’d discovery in duty-to-warn litigation being pursued by families of two victims of the 2007 massacre there by…

Jan 13, 2010 8:36 PM CST

Probe Asks if Some Colleges Keep Gender Balance by Favoring Male Applicants

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will be investigating at least a dozen universities in the Washington, D.C., area to see if they favor male applicants in an effort to keep gender balance at the schools. More women than men apply to most colleges in the D.C. area, the Washington…

Dec 14, 2009 7:43 PM CST

Mandatory Gym Class for Obese College Students on Shaky Legal Ground?

Lincoln University in Pennsylvania instituted a policy in 2006 requiring students with a body mass index of over 30 to take a one-credit gym class to graduate. Now that members of the class of 2010 have their final semester in sight, the policy is attracting attention. Dean James DeBoy told…

Dec 3, 2009 7:53 PM CST

Study: Students Pressured to Drop Rape Complaints

Students who are victims of sexual assault on campus face a “culture of secrecy” when attempting to bring their perpetrators to justice, according to an investigative report released this week. The Washington, D.C.-based Center for Public Integrity, over a nine-month period, interviewed 33 female students who had reported being raped.…

Dec 2, 2009 5:06 PM CST

‘It’s’ an Issue in Story Review Instigated by Justice Kennedy’s Office

A new staffer who works for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy demanded the right to review quotations by student publications at two schools, it turns out. The review of a story about an Oct. 15 George Washington University speech resulted in a request to change the contraction “it’s” to “it is,”…

Nov 19, 2009 1:43 PM CST