Posts Tagged ‘school discipline’

Feds’ crusade on disproportionate minority school discipline rates

Don’t miss Heather MacDonald’s account at City Journal of one of Washington’s most troubling regulatory initiatives. Legal background:

Unfortunately, the Bush administration failed to rescind the Department of Education’s disparate-impact regulation, guaranteeing that the next Democratic administration would again unleash it upon hapless school districts. Advocates inside and outside the executive branch are now celebrating the resuscitation of disparate impact.

Also includes a sidebar on the feds’ somewhat contrasting “anti-bullying” campaign. More: Hans Bader, plus a letter from him in the Frederick News-Post; update on similar plans by Maryland state board of education; Ted Frank with a link to a fairly horrifying comment at Joanne Jacobs’s site.

Filed under: bullying, school discipline

June 18 roundup

Any dollar figure will do: “Ohio woman sues for $500 billion after her car is towed” [Jalopnik]
Rabbit-breeding without a license proves costly for Missouri family facing $90K USDA fine [Amy Alkon]
Per Linda Greenhouse, SCOTUS in Bush v Gore said “this opinion is never to be cited.” Oh? [Ed Whelan, NRO, further]
Boston loses young innovation-sector workers by overregulating nightlife [Dante Ramos, Globe]
“Title IX after 40 years” is topic of a discussion and lunch this Wednesday at Cato; “CA Lawmaker Speaks Truths on Title IX, Bashing Ensues” [Deborah Elson, American Sports Council; Chris Norby]
Department of Justice is conducting “incredibly aggressive” push against local governments under civil rights laws, or so says one supporter [Bagenstos] “School discipline and disparate impact” [John R. Martin, Federalist Society “Engage”]
Traffic laws changed considerably following the development of the automobile. Something sinister in that, or pretty much what one would expect? [Sarah Goodyear, “The invention of jaywalking,” Atlantic Cities]

Filed under: Boston, restaurants, school discipline, Supreme Court, Title IX, traffic laws

Education roundup

Thomas Cooley Law School in Michigan, facing class-action suit, subpoenas Colorado lawprof Paul Campos, vocal critic of schools’ disclosure policies [Campos, Scott Greenfield]
“Maintenance of effort”: Yielding to special ed lobby, feds won’t let local school districts cut outlays [Nirvi Shah, Ed Week] “Havoc in classrooms” feared as NYC pushes least restrictive placement of disabled students [NY Post] Feds to universities: it’s an ADA violation to ask suicidal students to leave [WFAE, Popehat]
Arizona lawmaker proposes ban on political viewpoint discrimination in faculty hiring [Inside Higher Ed]
“University of Maryland Cuts Varsity Cheer Program” [Washington Post, Doug Robinson/Deseret News via Saving Sports]
Due-process revolution in school discipline hasn’t worked out as intended [Richard Arum, The Atlantic] Heavy police presence in schools is something new [J.D. Tuccille, Reason] “Education Department Pushes Racial Quotas in School Discipline” [Hans Bader, CEI]
“What Yale and the Times Did to Patrick Witt” [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]

Filed under: colleges and universities, disability & schools, law schools, New York Times, school discipline, schools, student suicide, suicide, Title IX, Yale

March 16 roundup

“A new target for tech patent trolls: cash-strapped American cities” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica] Crowdsourcing troll control [Farhad Manjoo, Slate] “Why patent trolls don’t need valid patents” [Felix Salmon] “Why Hayek Would Have Hated Software Patents” [Timothy Lee, Cato] Et tu, Shoah Foundation? [Mike Masnick, TechDirt]
Cory King case: “Not Everything Can Be a Federal Crime” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
“Ban on smoking in cars with young children clears Md. Senate” [WaPo]
On religious exemption to birth control mandate, NYT wrestles with unwelcome poll numbers [Mickey Kaus]
“Undocumented Law Grad Can’t Get Driver’s License, But Hopes for Fla. Supreme Court OK of Law License” [ABA Journal]
Department of Justice launches campaign against racial disparities in school discipline [Jason Riley, WSJ via Amy Alkon]
James Gattuso and Diane Katz, “Red Tape Rising: Obama-Era Regulation at the Three-Year Mark” [Heritage]

Filed under: immigration law, patent trolls, regulation and its reform, school discipline, smoking bans

Mean-girl YouTube video

The New York Times tells of a Beverly Hills, Calif. student who

videotaped friends at a cafe, egging them on as they laughed and made mean-spirited, sexual comments about another eighth-grade girl, C. C., calling her “ugly,” “spoiled,” a “brat” and a “slut.” J. C. posted the video on YouTube. The next day, the school suspended her for two days.

Now, before clicking the link, guess who collected the resulting $107,150.80. Right. Ken at Popehat thinks the judge decided the case in favor of the right party, more or less, which doesn’t keep the right party from also being a deplorably wrong party (strong language, invective, etc.)

Filed under: attorneys' fees, school discipline, YouTube

School discipline quotas in Tucson

Heather Mac Donald in City Journal:

As part of its plan to comply with a federal desegregation order now decades old, Tucson’s school district adopted racial quotas in school discipline this summer. Schools that suspend or expel Hispanic and black students at higher rates than white students will now get a visit from a district “Equity Team” and will be expected to remedy those disparities by reducing their minority discipline rates.

What? They can’t comply by collaring and disciplining a random selection of additional white students?

Filed under: Arizona, discrimination law, school discipline

June 25 roundup

UK libel law still casting a chill on free speech around the world [Floyd Abrams, Index on Censorship via Ken at Popehat, Kirk Hartley]
Much talked about Ramesh Ponnuru op-ed on Constitution and government consideration of race [NYT]
“EFF Busts Bogus Internet Subdomain Patent” [Electronic Frontier Foundation]
Why you can’t get low-cost health insurance, part LXVII: legal pressure on insurers to cover behavioral autism treatment [NLJ, Detroit Free Press]
New Jersey disbars reparations lawyer Ed Fagan, New York having already done so [Black Star News, JTA, Newark Star-Ledger, NJLJ]

pigdrawing

Author Wendell Berry: force NAIS animal-tagging on every small farmer, and you’ll have to call the cops on me [Food Renegade; more on NAIS and small producers, Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund; earlier here, etc.]
Indiana enacts what Gov. Mitch Daniels calls nation’s strongest law protecting teachers from lawsuits [WANE, WTHR]
Town of Kenner, La. says it’s learned its lesson from being sued and will ticket drunken bicyclists even if they’re badly hurt in accidents [nine years ago on Overlawyered]

Filed under: agriculture and farming, autism, free speech, Indiana, insurance, patent quality, school discipline, United Kingdom

Quoted more on Sotomayor

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyn Lochhead quotes me on the Supreme Court pick:

“It’s not as if I think Obama’s incapable of nominating someone who is more adventurous and more activist by nature,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. “Maybe we should save the all-out blast for when he nominates that one.”

I also have a comment on Ricci v. DeStefano, the lawsuit that arose from relatively blatant discrimination by the city of New Haven against non-minority firefighter applicants. I would not be surprised to learn that Sotomayor’s views on reverse discrimination differed widely from my own, but still note that it’s vaguely incongruous to treat as Exhibit A for a charge of judicial activism an instance in which the judge and her colleagues ducked a case.

Finally, my postings on the Sotomayor nomination continue at Point of Law, including an item on a Connecticut school discipline case where the nominee has drawn fire for (as part of a unanimous panel) siding with the school authorities. More: Jake Tapper, ABC.

Filed under: discrimination law, school discipline, Sonia Sotomayor

March 22 roundup

No back-alley bikini lines: New Jersey consumer affairs director rejects proposed ban on Brazilian waxing [Asbury Park Press, JammieWearingFool, Jaira Lima and protest site, Popehat, News12 video] Florida, however, won’t let you get a fish-nibble pedicure [WWSB]
Kids doing well in homeschool but divorcing dad disapproves, judge says they must be sent to public [WRAL, Volokh]
Al Franken comes out for loser-pays in litigation (well, in this case at least) [MSNBC “First Read”]
U.K.: “A man who tried to kill himself has won £90,000 in damages from the hospital which saved his life but hurt his arm in the process” [Telegraph]
Life in places without the First Amendment: “Australia’s Vast, Scattershot Censorship Blacklist Revealed” [Slashdot, Volokh, Popehat]; British Telecom passes all internet traffic through “‘Cleanfeed” filters to identify (inter alia) racist content [Glasgow Herald]
More on that suit by expelled student against Miss Porter’s School; “Oprichniki” said to be not identical to Keepers of Tradition [NYTimes; our December coverage]
“Why We Need Cop Cameras” [Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune] Shopkeepers terrorized in Philadelphia: “The thugs had badges.” [Ken at Popehat]
Counting former lobbyists in Obama Administration? Don’t forget Kathleen Sebelius [Jeff Emanuel, RedState]
Wisconsin: “$50,000 claim filed over girl’s time-out in school” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

Filed under: Al Franken, Australia, First Amendment, Kathleen Sebelius, lobbyists, loser pays, Milwaukee, nanny state, New Jersey, online speech, Philadelphia, police, school discipline, United Kingdom

Cheerleading: Serious Business

Making a federal case out of petty politics in high school cheerleading: Where else but Texas?

The mother of a former Creekview High School cheerleader has filed a federal lawsuit against Carrollton-Farmers Branch schools, arguing the district did not sufficiently discipline cheerleaders who she says bullied her daughter.

The lawsuit, brought by Liz Laningham, argues that the district discriminated against her daughter and “turned a blind eye” to the harassment. The lawsuit could result in a jury trial.

So far as I can tell from the linked story, the main element of damages appears to be that Liz Laningham’s daughter did not make the cheerleading squad in her senior year, after being a member in her junior year. And there are the usual allegations of Facebook frippery, rumors and innuendos within the team, biased judging during senior year tryouts, etc. etc.

What I can’t tell from this Dallas Morning News story is what possible basis Liz Laningham’s lawyer could have for bringing this action in federal court. While various civil rights acts prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, disability, etc., none of those are named as putative grounds for the suit. As for sex and age discrimination, presumably the victim and her harassers are all young women. Does Title IX prohibit girls from being girls?

And does any girl, no matter how spoiled and entitled her mother has made her, have a right to lead cheers?

Filed under: cheerleading, school discipline