On April 16, 2007, a student at Virginia Tech University, known to be mentally ill, went on a rampage shooting 49 people on campus before taking his own life. When it was over, 32 people were dead, and the concept of a safe campus was forever changed. The incident revealed the inherent conflicts between campus safety concerns and students' civil…

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education (The United States Department of Justice, n.d.). Although Title IX was enacted over 45 years ago, college athletic departments remain non-compliant with the law (U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2016; Women's Law…

The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) is a piece of federal legislation that directs schools and districts to provide students with disabilities a "free appropriate public education." It contains numerous legal tools that parents can use to compel schools to develop appropriate educational programming for their…

This dissertation examines the risk-based approach to privacy and data protection and the role of information sensitivity within risk management. Determining what information carries the greatest risk is a multi-layered challenge that involves balancing the rights and interests of multiple actors, including data controllers, data processors, and…

In the 21st century, attainment of a college degree is more important than ever to achieve economic self-sufficiency, employment, and an adequate standard of living. Projections suggest that by 2020, 65% of jobs available in the U.S. will require postsecondary education. This reality creates an unprecedented demand for higher education, and…

Sense-making theory involves a sociological/communications science approach to the need of students to make sense of their environment and the information they are seeking to find. With many digital resources to choose from, non-traditional students often have difficulty finding the best resource for their assignments, opting for the easiest path…

This study explores how institutional practices within a school district limit general education teachers' ability to comply with special education policies. While numerous special education issues exist within the school district studied here, my research examined institutional practices that negatively impacted inclusion of exceptional students…

This dissertation studies three incentive issues in information security management. The first essay studies contract issues between a firm that outsources security functions and a managed security service provider (MSSP) that provides security functions to the firm. Since MSSP and firms cannot observe each other's actions, both can suffer…

In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to put people with mental retardation to death for capital crimes ("Atkins v. Virginia," 2002). Justice Scalia dissented, suggesting that mental retardation is a condition easy to feign. The current study examined whether participants provided with the definition of mental…

Complaining is a fundamental human characteristic that has prevailed throughout the ages. We normally complain about something that went wrong. Patient complaints are no exception; they focus on problems that occurred during the episode of care. The Institute of Medicine estimated that each year thousands of patients die due to medical errors. The…

This qualitative, phenomenological case study was designed to illuminate the perceptions and experiences of eight undocumented community college students navigating the California public higher education systems with the aim of identifying factors associated with college persistence. These factors fall into three categories: financial, academic,…

Every year, thousands of undocumented, unaccompanied immigrant youth take dangerous journeys to the United States only to be apprehended by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) upon arrival. These youth, who are both involuntary and voluntary immigrants, are then faced with the challenge of having to navigate the complex contexts of the legal…

This dissertation explored the constitutionality of a Georgia law, under both the Georgia Constitution and the United States Constitution, which allows for the removal of elected school board members based on threatened loss of district accreditation. The problem is that elected board members are being removed from office based on district…

There has been little research regarding adverse employment actions against public school principals. Principals are dismissed, demoted, or transferred, not only for low accountability test scores but for a variety of reasons that may or may not affect test scores. The legal ramifications of these adverse employment actions have resulted in…

Purpose: The purposes of this study were to (a) investigate the connections between aspects of organizational cultures and employees' propensity to file claims and/or engage in litigious conduct against their organization, (b) ascertain behaviors of managers and supervisors implicitly sanctioned by the organization's culture that trigger employees…