In this case the Court upheld the age-old doctrine of assumption of risk, affirming the inherent dangers of teeing off in golf. Despite a nasty trip on a tree root, the golfer was not entitled to recover for his injuries due to the primary assumption of the risk doctrine. This case sets a precedent for understanding the potential hazards of the…

In this article, the authors reflect on the methodological tools they used to recover hidden perspectives within two desegregation cases, "Karla Galarza v. The Board of Education of Washington D.C.", 1947 and "Debbie and Doreen Soria, et al. v. Oxnard School Board of Trustees," 1974. Placing these two narratives in conversation…

Purpose: Studies tracking changes in physical education (PE) policy adherence after an intervention are scarce. In California, successful litigation against 37 school districts for not providing adequate PE time compelled district schools' teachers to post PE schedules online or on-site for 3 years. We performed a follow-up study 4 years after the…

Teaching physical education involves more than overseeing what happens on the field, court or in the swimming pool. Physical educators also need to control the locker room, where students hazing other students may be common practice at certain schools. This case is a good example of what happens when teachers and coaches fail to supervise athletes…

Due process hearings provide a formal resolution for disagreements that may arise within special education. The purpose of this study was to examine the types of issues that arise in due process cases for students with emotional disturbance (ED). The current study examined select due process hearings during 2014 to 2019 from four states for…

We live in a culture where school systems are accused of being negligent or at fault for any undesired outcome. This can leave school districts and their employees anxious about potential consequences, regardless if the negligent claim is warranted or not. Therefore, there is a need for all educators to understand their responsibilities to provide…

This paper describes the author's personal involvement with issues of policy and implementation that were sparked by the "Lau" decision. Topics included are student assessment, the bilingual education wars, the role of research, the paradigm shift with the advent of standards, and California state policy in the education of English…

The "Lau v. Nichols" ruling shows the importance of tailoring programs for local multilingual learners. We used longitudinal data from one school district in California to assess the relationship between attending a school with a language support program and English language arts (ELA) achievement. We found that students labeled an…

In her 2024 State of the State address, New York Governor Kathy Hochul introduced the Top 10% Promise, a policy offering New York students ranked in the top 10% of their high school class direct admission to the State University of New York (SUNY) system. "Access to higher education," she said, "has the potential to transform the…

Mexican American educational history has become a vibrant field of study since the late 1980s. In the last seven years, however, it is notable that this research has inspired community-based efforts to preserve and publicly commemorate challenges to unequal education. In this commentary, we discuss the archival recovery of the "Francisco…

Many recent critical reforms in state school finance systems have been catalyzed by the courthouse, not the statehouse. Advocates for equity-focused school finance reforms often consider legal action as the best path to significant policy changes. This brief discusses state-level lawsuits on adequacy and equity grounds and their outcomes.

Five days after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in "Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District," the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in "M.C. v. Antelope Valley Union High School District." This important decision involved a student who was being served under the Individuals with…

Forty years have passed since the "Larry P. v. Riles" (1979) decision prohibiting the use of standardized intelligence quotient (IQ) tests to assess African American children in California for special education. While the "Larry P." case has governed the assessment practices of school psychologists for so many years, yet little…

For this 22nd article in the series reviewing recent court decisions concerning appropriate school psychology practice from both professional and legal perspectives, the topic is child find and eligibility under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), including as a secondary matter the intersecting requirement for a comprehensive…

Using critical discourse analysis, this article reveals how power is inherent in and maintained through Title IX campus-based adjudication processes. We interrogate the role of identity and power in Title IX adjudication processes through an intersectional analytic framework. We challenge the reliance on fairness and neutrality, which leads…