As public use of school facilities increases, legal questions concerning their use can also be expected to increase. Such increases in litigation are most likely to involve the constitutional rights of students to use school facilities. Anticipating this increase, this paper reviews some cases dealing with constitutional issues of freedom of…

Approximately 200,000 persons aged 60 and older are arrested annually in the United States and over 50,000 of these persons are formally accused of a crime each year. An exploratory study was conducted to probe the adversarial posture of elderly misdemeanant defendants. An analysis of 4,976 cases drawn from the official dockets of the Dade County…

The second round of litigation in the case of Debra P. v. Turlington has required the Federal courts to consider the question whether the Florida statute which requires public high school graduates to demonstrate the "ability to successfully apply basic skills to every day life situations" as measured by the State Student Assessment…

This document on the Civil Rights of Students, perpared by the Educational Opportunities Planning Center, provides a synthesis of presentations made by the author and of the three discussion and answer sessions that followed at the three meetings of the School Law Conferences. Opening remarks emphasize the need for educators to respond to…

Three changes in trial procedure are proposed to minimize the effects of individual juror bias and those biases that are artifically induced by lawyers. Since certain personality types are likely to maintain whatever prejudices they bring to court, no one should be exempted from jury duty unless he is mentally retarded or physically incapacitated…

A major legal development in the 1970s has been the extension of the principle of egalitarianism to the developmentally disabled, particularly the mentally retarded. The principle that all persons, however unequal they may be in terms of their development, should be treated equally in the sense of being granted equal opportunities has been…

This speech, a transcript from the tape of the original presentation at a session of the School Law Conference held at the University of Tennessee reviews recent and pending court decisions in three active areas of School Law; school finance, school desegregation, and student rights, with an emphasis on the issues encompassing the latter. The…

This speech, presented at the "Symposium for the Advancement of Non-Aversive Behavioral Management" by the counselor to the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General from the U.S. Department of Justice, supports the view that use of aversive procedures on institutionalized severely handicapped individuals is inappropriate. The 14th…

This paper traces and analyzes the development of the Supreme Court's work in the area of sexual equality, with particular emphasis on the family dimension of this issue. The Court is criticized for both the legal and policy inadequacies of its recent decisions. It is argued that the Court has failed to use a consistent, principled standard by…

Of the 2 million children suspended from school each year, a disproportionate number are minority youth who, although they make up only 5 percent of the school population, comprise 40 percent of all suspensions and expulsions. The United States Supreme Court has issued several rulings to protect students from arbitrary and capricious imposition of…

Three areas of court litigation pose challenges to the administration of higher education. First, developments in equal protection and related areas promise reassessment of the distribution of educational finances. Both federal and state court cases suggest a shift from a requirement of equal educational opportunity to equal educational effects.…

The constitutional basis for laws concerning rights of the handicapped lies in the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection and due process clauses. Recent litigation has been based on Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, P.L. 94-142. Significant court decisions affecting education have been handed down in five areas. Regarding right to free…

Statutory and case law since 1953 have created a firm basis for personnel policy in Mississippi public school districts. House Bill No. 11 (1953) prescribed methods for the selection and employment of professional staff and conditions for their suspension and dismissal, establishing rights of proper notice and due process. Standards for…

The nature of the interests in education that are protected by the Constitution may be ascertained by reference to certain due process and equal protection decisions of the Supreme Court reviewed in this paper. Although education is not a right granted by the Constitution, the Court has often recognized the importance of education, both to the…

The free press/fair trial controversy hinges on two distinctions: "decorum" (the general manner in which a trial is comported) vs. "substance" (the actual content of information relating to a trial, including both evidentiary and nonevidentiary information), and behavior within vs. behavior outside of the courtroom. Four major Supreme Court…