Law review digests

Journal of Law and Education, Jan 2003

Note, Equal Opportunity, Individual Liberty, and Meritocracy in Education: Reinforcing Structures of Privilege and Inequality, 9 Geo. J. on Poverty L. & Pol'y 227 (2002). The author proposes that a voucher program supported by the notion of "equal opportunity" actually legitimates the pervasiveness of social inequality in the school program. The note suggests that schools should focus on the fact that there are students from different degrees of privilege and that those issues must be addressed without superficially covering the reality of inequality by providing vouchers.

Note, Is "Adequacy" a More "Political Question" than "Equality?": The Effect of Standards-Based Education on Judicial Standards for Education Finance, 11 Cornell J.L. & Pub. Poly 403 (2002). This note tracks the change in education finance litigation from claims based on the inequality of education funding between rich and poor districts to claims based on the right to adequate schooling under state constitutions. Note, The Long Shadow of the Confederacy in America's Schools: StateSponsored Use of Confederate Symbols in the Wake of Brown v. Board, 10 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 525 (2002). A critical history of proliferation of confederate symbolism in the last 50 years and an argument for its unconstitutionality.

Note, Posting the Ten Commandments as a Historical Doctrine in Public Schools, 87 Iowa L. Rev. 1023 (2002). The author discusses recent freedom of religion cases involving school prayer and the display of a religious cr&he. The author asserts that posting the Ten Commandments purely for historical purposes would also violate the Constitution because, as a purely religious document, the posting suggests that Christianity is fundamental to U.S. history.

Casenotes

Casenote, Constitutional Law: Establishment Clause v. Free Expression: Adler v. Duval County School Board, 54 Okla. L. Rev. 775 (2001). In Adler, the Eleventh Circuit allowed a school system to continue its policy permitting a graduating student, elected by his or her class, to deliver an unrestricted message of choice at the beginning or closing of graduation ceremonies. This article finds that after the Adler decision, students' right to speech free from content or viewpoint discrimination continues.

Casenote, First Amendment- Freedom of Speech- A Public Elementary School's Exclusion of a Christian Organization from Meeting on School Grounds Because of the Organization's Religious Perspective is Unconstitutional Viewpoint Discrimination-Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 121 S. Ct. 2093, 12 Seton Hall Const. L.J. 333 (2000). Despite the recent decision in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, several questions remain unresolved concerning the requirement of viewpoint neutrality in Free Speech jurisprudence. The procedural posture of the case as it came to the court required the majority to base its decisions on assumptions and unclear facts. Because this situation makes the Court's stance difficult to discern, the decision's precedental value is inevitably weakened.