Education Law

Law Hushed Va. Tech Gunman’s Disorder

Federal privacy and disability laws prohibited high school officials from revealing that the Virginia Tech gunman suffered from a social anxiety disorder. Fairfax County created a special education plan for Seung Hui Cho that allowed him to decline to participate in class discussions at his high school, the Washington Post…

Aug 27, 2007 4:44 PM CDT

Va. Tech Panels: More Security Needed

More is needed to help keep students safe on campus, according to reports by three internal Virginia Tech review committees that were released today. The committees were appointed after a student gunman killed 32 students and faculty during a several-hour on-campus massacre on April 16, to help the university prevent…

Aug 22, 2007 10:56 PM CDT

NY Subpoenas Study-Abroad Agencies

The New York Attorney General’s office is investigating whether study-abroad agencies pay cash or other incentives to universities. Lawyer Benjamin Lawsky told the New York Times that the office has issued five subpoenas to study-abroad providers, the first of several to come. The probe follows disclosures that some study-abroad agencies…

Aug 16, 2007 1:38 PM CDT

Schools Fret Over Race-Based Assignments

Schools throughout the country are having to parse a June Supreme Court decision to decide if they will continue to assign students to schools based on race. While the high court struck down race-based assignments in Seattle in Louisville, Ky., National Public Radio reports that other districts are counting on…

Aug 15, 2007 4:29 PM CDT

Dean Charged in Student Drinking Death

In what may be the first case of its kind, a dean of students and another Rider University administrator were among five people charged by a Mercer County, N.J., grand jury with aggravated hazing over the death of a student from alcohol poisoning. If convicted, Dean of Students Anthony Campbell…

Aug 6, 2007 4:56 PM CDT

Do Public Schools Promote Christianity?

Teaching but not preaching is the goal. But Christian religious instruction reportedly is the reality in many public schools that teach courses that purportedly seek to inform students about the Bible from a literary and historical perspective. The issue is of growing importance, as an increasing number of public schools…

Aug 6, 2007 3:23 PM CDT

Special Ed Appeals Can Be Costly

Two U.S. Supreme Court rulings and an amended law up the ante for parents seeking special education services for their children. The legal precedents are just one obstacle faced by parents, who often face skeptical review hearing officers deciding their administrative appeals when schools deny services, the Wall Street Journal…

Jul 24, 2007 5:49 PM CDT

Facebook Helps Oxford U Enforce Rules

So-called trashings aren’t cricket, under Oxford University rules. But neither is the method the renowned British college is now using to discipline its students for dousing others with champagne, flour and worse in celebration of completing exams, some believe. Disciplinary officials known as proctors have been surfing the Internet, looking…

Jul 17, 2007 8:40 PM CDT

EMU Firings: Rare Clery Act Fallout

Three senior administrators including Eastern Michigan University’s president have been fired and an in-house lawyer has been reprimanded, in response to reports finding that the Ypsilanti institution violated federal law by falsely portraying Laura Dickinson’s death in her dorm room last year as a non-criminal act. In fact, the 22-year-old…

Jul 17, 2007 5:37 PM CDT

ABA to Provide Accrediting Documents

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is asking the ABA to explain how it applies a diversity standard when assessing whether law schools meet accreditation requirements. In a letter obtained by Inside Higher Ed, Spellings said she would approve the ABA as the accrediting body for law schools for another 18 months…

Jun 29, 2007 8:29 PM CDT

Integration Plan B Uses Income

More school districts are likely to consider income as a race neutral way to achieve school diversity in the wake of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision striking down two school integration plans. The 5-4 decision struck down programs used in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., area schools that used race as a…

Jun 29, 2007 5:48 PM CDT

Court Strikes Down Integration Plans

Updated: In perhaps the most-anticipated ruling of the term, the U.S. Supreme Court stepped back into the debate over affirmative action, ruling in a 5-4 decision that two public schools improperly used race as a factor in school assignments, SCOTUSblog reports. The schools have “failed to provide the necessary support…

Jun 28, 2007 5:12 PM CDT

Report: College Concealed Murder, Violating Federal Law

Officials at Eastern Michigan University apparently suspected all along that Laura Dickinson was murdered. And there was good reason to do so. The body of the 22-year-old student was found, naked from the waist down, in her locked dorm room, with a pillow over her head, reports the Los Angeles…

Jun 19, 2007 10:56 PM CDT

Court Watchers Predict a Roberts School Opinion

Supreme Court watchers are looking at the numbers to predict that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will write a 5-4 majority decision striking down school admission plans in Louisville and Seattle. The formula, according to the Washington Post, is to divide the number of decisions issued this term by…

May 29, 2007 3:56 PM CDT

No Right to Bear Cell Phones

A New York judge has upheld a ban on cell phones at public schools. Judge Lewis Bart Stone said the ban was reasonable and did not violate the Constitution, according to the New York Times. “Neither the state nor federal constitutions include any express constitutional right to bear cell phones,”…

May 8, 2007 2:17 PM CDT