When the government chooses to cooperate with private organizations to provide public services, the Supreme Court has made clear that the First Amendment prohibits religious discrimination. Three cases--"Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer" (2017), "Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue" (2020), and…

Between 2017 and 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court examined three cases that involved states that tried to limit the use of public money to support religious-affiliated schools. The Supreme Court found a violation of the Free Exercise Clause in all three cases. Although not the focus of the Court's opinions, these cases may have created avenues for…

In "Carson v. Makin," the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, if a state offers tuition assistance for students to attend private schools, then requiring that those private schools be nonsectarian violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Robert Kim discusses how this case aligns with other decisions related to the free…

This article summarizes the applicable judicial analysis for cases in which special education personnel claim that their employing district retaliated against them for advocacy on behalf of students with disabilities. Providing examples of recent relevant court decisions, it traces the applicable essential elements and likely outcomes for such…

On June 30, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in "Espinoza v. Montana," that the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause precludes states from excluding religious schools from private school choice programs. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded: "A State need not subsidize private education. But once a…

Business law and legal environment textbooks typically devote a page or two to the tort of invasion of privacy, describing the four versions of this tort, including "appropriation of identity." The Clarkson textbook notes that "An individual's right to privacy normally includes the right to the exclusive use of her or his…

Libraries still stand as a source of knowledge that can guide us to make informed decisions through the use of credible sources. A balanced collection that provides access to all points of view empowers a community to use information responsibly and make decisions independently. Intellectual freedom and equity of access are still important issues…

The objective of this edited volume is to shed light upon K-12 perspectives of various school stakeholders in the current unique context of increasing political polarization and heightened teacher and student activism. It is grounded in academic freedom case law and the majority of opinion of the Supreme Court in the Tinker v. Des Moines…

This paper focuses on how undergraduate students on five public university campuses perceived and reacted to religious coercion. We identified three sources of coercion: (a) public proselytizers, (b) peers, and (c) academic faculty whose expression of beliefs was perceived as implicitly coercive by students who often connected religious beliefs to…

The past few years have seen an increase in partisan political attempts to restrict the public education curriculum and to portray some forms of public education as a social harm. Two targets are particularly evident: teaching about the history, policies, and actions of the state of Israel and teaching about the history and perpetuation of racism…

Background: Over the past decade, courts increasingly have considered cases that involve clashes between public, secular private, and religious institutions in education. Such clashes appear to have intensified as recently as the 2019-2020 Supreme Court term, and the confirmation of Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Court in 2020 suggests…

The United States Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton Sch. Dist. held that a local school district violated the First Amendment freedom of religious expression rights when it directed an assistant football coach to stop praying on the fifty-yard line of a high school football field after each game. In finding for the high-school football coach,…

An analysis of the jurisprudence related to religious schools and public funding, grounded in the interpretation of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, suggests that religious charter schools may be constitutionally permissible. Moreover, recent Supreme Court cases may provide a stronger argument for…

The purpose of this "Equity by Design" brief is to aid administrators in protecting sexual and gender minority students from discrimination and harassment. Specifically, this Brief presents Title IX's conceptualizations of sex and harassment to identify who is protected, and from what. Further, it discusses how to navigate backlash…

This policy memo examines some fundamental shifts, along with their real-world implications, within the past 60 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence, up to and including the current "Carson v. Makin" case. The Supreme Court is just a few small steps away from transforming every charter school law in the U.S. into a private-school voucher…