To explore why school administrators have only a limited base of knowledge of the laws and cases affecting education, the Informational Resource Questionnaire (IRQ) was designed to study attitudes about legal knowledge. The IRQ focuses on school demographics, which resources administrators most commonly use to obtain both general and legal…

The legal rights of college students have changed substantially over the years, particularly during the 20th century. This paper provides a historical sketch of student rights, including a listing of significant events and cases, from the founding of Harvard College in 1636 to the bicentennial of the Constitution and the 50th anniversary of the…

This Digest overviews legal challenges in five areas of test use for decision-making in schools: ability tracking, placement in special education classes, test scores as college admissions criteria, test disclosure, and teacher competency testing. Cases illustrating these challenges are described and include: Hobson v. Hansen (1967), Moses v.…

This brief overview of minimum competency testing and disabled high school students discusses: the inclusion or exclusion of handicapped students in minimum competency testing programs; approaches to accommodating the individual needs of handicapped students; and legal issues. Surveys of states that have mandated minimum competency tests indicate…

Principals and other educators fear litigation over defamation. Defamation means an injury to character or reputation by false, malicious statements, whether by printed words (libel) or by spoken words (slander). To constitute defamation, the words must be actionable, defamatory, refer to the plaintiff, and be communicated to others. If the words…

This conference report addresses the issue of parental leave, particularly maternity leave at childbirth and parenting leaves for fathers and mothers after childbirth. Growing interest in this area is attributed to the dramatic change over the past 10 years in the labor force behavior of women. Currently existing national and employer policies for…

The new and immense task that awaits the judiciary of Canada is to decide what limitations, if any, ought to be imposed upon freedom of expression as protected in the new Canadian Constitution with an entrenched Charter of Rights. The area of civil libel law provides special problems related to free speech and press. One source of help for…

Although women in North Carolina increasingly enter the work force to stay and their "protected" status in marriage is no longer secure, North Carolina's women do not have economic equality under law with men. Husbands have full rights to the rents, profit, and control of entirety property and real estate during marriage; and no women…

This is one of four papers prepared by the Legal Standards Project. It is concerned with whether the legal requirements for state administration of Title I are set forth with adequate clarity and sufficiency and whether the legal framework adequately interrelates different functions state educational agencies must perform in the process of…

This handbook offers a comprehensive review of the social and psychological problems of child abuse and the role of the schools and community agencies in dealing with the problem. Sections elaborate the historical perspective, legal problems of definition and legislation, incidence and etiology of abuse. Identification by the school, reporting,…

This volume contains articles addressing the topic of personal liberty and its relationship to education. Some of these are reprinted from publications issued by members of the Alliance of Associations for the Advancement of Education or cooperating associations; others were written expressly for this volume. A commentary by Nat Hentoff is…

The advocacy role of state developmental disabilities councils is examined in the monograph. It is explained that the material was gathered from a 1974 conference in Winter Park, Colorado. Topics addressed include the potential for advocacy, a personal perspective on developmental disabilities from a cerebral palsied adult, planning and evaluating…

The Student Press Law Center serves as a national clearinghouse to collect, analyze, and distribute information on the First Amendment rights of student journalists and journalism teachers and on violations of these rights in high schools and colleges. This report details information concerning current censorship incidents: the investigation by…

In "Goss v. Lopez," the Supreme Court held that students have a right to a free public education, which cannot be taken away by school officials through suspensions, even temporarily, without due process of law. In "Wood v. Strickland," the Court further extended students' rights by ruling that, in the context of school…

The article outlines four basic conflicts concerning occupational health and safety, discusses the nature and dimensions of health and safety problems, examines the generation of information and its diffusion, and deals briefly with some economic issues. (Author)