On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision on "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization." By voting to uphold Mississippi's law banning most abortions after 15 weeks, the Court overturned "Roe v. Wade," eliminating the federal standard protecting a woman's right to abortion and reversing nearly 50 years of…

This study interrogates "Abbeville v. the State of South Carolina" using a policy-regimes framework to understand the relationship between the South Carolina Judicial System, General Assembly, and Educational stakeholders. We seek to understand how the political interests of the General Assembly and wealthy districts may have subverted a…

This paper examines Special Education Tribunals, in Ontario, Canada through a Luhmannian theoretical lens. At total of 58 Special Education Tribunal summary hearings were analyzed using the constant comparative method through NVivo software. The results revealed that these Tribunals appear to favour the assessment testimony of teachers and other…

Background: Local governments increasingly rely on sales taxes to raise revenue, often justifying the need for a local sales tax increase with a specific programmatic goal, such as better education or transportation. In Washington State, the legislature explained that a local sales tax increase was necessary to support criminal justice because…

The anti-slavery ministry of Rev. John G. Fee and the unlikely establishment of Berea College in Kentucky in the 1850s, the first college in the southern United States to be coeducationally and racially integrated, are examined to further understand the conditions surrounding these extraordinary historical events. The Berea case illustrates how…

Just 18 minutes before the midnight signing deadline on May 15, 2010, Minnesota state legislators breathed a sigh of relief. Their bipartisan pension reform legislation, which passed both chambers by large margins and aimed to help shore up a potentially failing pension system, had just escaped a veto threat. Under pressure from his Republican…

Since the separate-but-equal era, students attending schools with high concentrations of Black students have attempted to improve the quality of their educations through school finance litigation. Because of the negative effects of racial isolation, Black students might consider mounting school finance litigation to force states to explicitly…

The funding of public education in many states, especially Illinois, is characterized by inequity. The reality is that students across the state are subject to a disparity in fiscal resources between those attending schools in the wealthiest and poorest districts. The cause of this dilemma is threefold. First, Illinois has a school finance scheme…

The school psychologist plays a central role in eligibility and other determinations under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) not only at the school level but also, upon formal disputes, at the successive adjudicative levels of impartial hearing officers and courts. One of the sources of professional confusion that requires…

Each year, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) receives many inquiries about the legal status of faculty handbooks. To respond to some common inquiries, the Association's legal office prepared this overview of faculty handbook decisions. It is arranged by state and includes decisions of which the Association is aware and that…

Despite a dark history marked by the eugenics movement, increasing numbers of people with disabilities are choosing to become parents. Recent research reveals that more than 4 million parents--6 percent of American mothers and fathers--are disabled. This number will unquestionably increase as more people with disabilities exercise a broader range…

New Jersey lawmakers recently changed state law to require schools to bear the burden of proving, if there is a dispute with parents, that the educational plans they create for students with disabilities are appropriate. The state's action, which follows a similar move by New York state in August, is considered a success by parents and advocacy…

Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) public school educators' rights have not been clearly delineated by the courts. As such, the outcomes in legal controversies involving adverse employment consequences based on teachers' sexual orientation have varied somewhat across jurisdictions and have been decided on a case-by-case basis. To…

Born out of one legal battle over affirmative action, the Texas college-admissions policy known as the "top 10 percent plan" is now at the center of another. The University of Texas at Austin is being challenged in U.S. District Court over its 2004 decision to return to using race-conscious admissions criteria after years without them.…

State profiles on youth in adult courts were compiled for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Federal District Courts. This volume contains profiles for the North Central states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The first part of each state profile…