Come One, Come All?
Two North Carolina bills aim to allow student organizations the option of restricting leadership based on ideology, but the bills carry the potential to face critical Constitutional issues. [...]
Education
Articles focusing on education law and policy.
Collegiate Athletics: For the love of the game, or the love of money?
On June 20, 2013, a federal court in California will hear arguments to determine whether O’Bannon v. NCAA will be classified as a class-action lawsuit. If the class is certified, major changes could be much more likely to soon be underway for collegiate athletics. [...]
Fifth-Graders Have Free Speech Rights, Too!
Until recently, most free speech cases concerning students have been at the middle school level and above. While courts have made it clear that students do not shed their rights at the schoolhouse gate, courts have also made it clear that an elementary school student does not necessarily share the same rights as a middle school or high school student. Defining free speech rights of elementary students can prove daunting, but many courts favor the conclusion that viewpoint discrimination [...]
Tracking Devices on Student ID Badges: An Unconstitutional Violation of Privacy or a Legitimate Safety Precaution?
Recent increases in violent acts in schools have left school officials struggling to find a balance between student safety and student liberty. Fraser recognized that students’ constitutional rights in public schools “are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings,” but the court also held in Tinker that school officials must ensure a student’s constitutional rights are not violated before restricting speech, invading privacy, or disciplining a [...]
No Girls Allowed: Single-Sex Education and the U.S. Constitution
On August 13, 2012, the Wake County Public School System offered parents the opportunity to have their children educated in a single-sex learning environment. The boys-only Wake Young Men’s Leadership Academy and the girls-only Wake Young Women’s Leadership Academy would join the ranks of more than 500 similar single-sex programs throughout the United States. According to the News and Observer, “[d]emand was high from families attracted by old-fashioned staples such as single-sex [...]
A Safety Dance: The School Violence Protection Act and Electronic Communication
This article is part of a series addressing cyberbullying and related issues. The previous installment can be found in The Campbell Law Observer archives. The last article in this series briefly discussed the problem of cyberbullying and how states are attempting to address the issue. This installment takes a closer look at North Carolina’s bullying statutes. The art of bullying begins at home. Siblings pick on one another, tease each other, and sometimes fight. From this perspective, [...]
Hot For Teacher: Gender Bias in Sentencing of Teachers that have Sex with Their Students
A female teacher from Texas was sentenced to five years in prison after being convicted of having sex with five male students in her home. One encounter involved group sex that was recorded on a cell phone. She was found guilty of sixteen counts of having an inappropriate relationship between a student and teacher. Each count was punishable by two to twenty years imprisonment. Sex between teachers and their students has always been a highly-publicized ordeal throughout the country, and it [...]
Supreme Court Opens October 2012 Term with a Bang: Affirmative Action in College Admissions
The Supreme Court of the United States has wrestled with the reach of the Equal Protection clause since the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. Courts across the country have considered the application of the clause to instances of age, sex, and race discrimination, and circumstances triggering the clause have ranged from voting rights to segregation on railroad cars. In just over a month, the Supreme Court will analyze the clause yet again, this time applying it to affirmative [...]
“Don’t Teach Me, Bro!”: Educational Responsibility in the Age of Wikipedia
Every college student who worked his or her way through freshman composition has done it. The research paper is a rite of passage on American university campuses. It is a project that teaches students the nature of academic thought and writing: utilizing credible sources to support an argument or point of view. There is an emphasis not only on citing sources, but also on evaluating the sources the student uses to support her argument. But what actually counts as “research”? And [...]
