A few weeks ago, the United States District Court of Massachusetts issued its long-awaited decision in the lawsuit brought by Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (“SFFA”) against Harvard University (“Harvard”). In a 130-page decision, the court found in favor of Harvard, holding that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions process was lawful.
U.S. Supreme Court Declines Review of Ferguson-Florissant School District v. Missouri Conference of NAACP
On January 7, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari in Ferguson-Florissant School District v. Missouri Conference of NAACP. This case involves the Ferguson-Florissant School District (“FFSD”), a St. Louis area school district created after a 1975 desegregation order required the original FFSD to annex two neighboring school districts “to achieve a meaningful desegregation” within one unified district. United States v. Missouri, 515 F.2d 1365, 1366 (8th Cir. 1975) (en banc).
This lawsuit challenged FFSD’s method of electing school board members. The suit alleged that the at-large, popular vote, system, in which people only vote once for a candidate, was racially biased against African-American candidates. This lawsuit was originally filed in 2014, when six of the seven school board members were Caucasian, even though about four-fifths of FFSD’s student population was African-American and approximately fifty percent of its voting age population was African-American.
The Supreme Court with Justice Kavanaugh: What Might Recent and Future Cases Mean for Urban Education?
In light of the 2017-2018 U.S. Supreme Court term ending and the 2018-2019 Supreme Court term beginning with new Justice Brett Kavanaugh, school district personnel must be mindful of the recent Supreme Court holdings and significant cases the Court may hear this term.
Update on Federal Courts Addressing Transgender Issues in Schools: Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board and Doe v. Boyertown Area School District
Within the last couple of weeks, two decisions were issued that relate to transgender students’ use of facilities in public schools. In Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court and the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a federal district court judge denied the Gloucester County school board’s motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s amended complaint. The plaintiff, a transgender student named Gavin Grimm, alleges the school board’s policy prohibiting his use of the bathroom that corresponds to his gender identity, rather than his biological sex, is unconstitutional. Likewise, in Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously rejected an appeal from the denial of a preliminary injunction seeking to block the school district’s policy allowing students to use sex-segregated facilities corresponding to their gender identity.
Student Use of Social Media: Rights and Responsibilities
In light of ever-increasing use (and abuse) of social media, school district personnel must be mindful of the rights and responsibilities—of students and of the school districts themselves—that come with this technology.
Interested in learning more about these rights and responsibilities? If you are a Husch Blackwell client or a member of the Council of the Great City Schools, join us next Tuesday, May 22, at 2:30 Eastern Daylight Time for a complimentary continuing legal education webinar. Click here to register.
Privacy, Please: FERPA Issues Impacting K-12 Public Schools
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that gives parents, students over 18, and postsecondary students the right to access education records, the right to seek to amend those records, and the right to consent to disclosure of personally identifiable information in the records, except as provided by law. The authors of this post recently presented on this topic as part of the webinar series for clients and members of the Council of Great City Schools.
Special Education “Clean Up” from ED: Trump Administration Rescinds 72 Special Education Guidance Documents
On October 20, 2017, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) within the U.S. Department of Education rescinded 72 education policy guidance documents. Sixty-three of the documents are from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), which administers the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and provides guidance to states and local governments on how to provide free and appropriate public education to children with disabilities. The remaining nine documents are from the Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA), which assists individuals with disabilities in employment, independence, and community integration matters. The OSEP documents concern topics including special education funding, due process procedures, private school placements, and more. By contrast, the RSA documents primarily concern employment issues and centers of independent living for adults with disabilities.
Department of Education Releases Guidance on IDEA, FAPE, and Endrew F.
On December 7, 2017, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) released a question-and-answer document on the Supreme Court’s 2017 opinion in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District, 580 U.S., 137 S.Ct. 988 (2017) (“Endrew”). Endrew addressed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) clarifying the scope of a free appropriate public education (FAPE). The Supreme Court held that in order for a school to meet its substantive obligation under IDEA, it must offer an individualized education plan (IEP) “reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child’s circumstances.”
Feeling the Shift in Title IX’s Landscape: Internal Policies and Procedures, OCR Investigations, and Litigation
In light of shifting federal guidance and heightened awareness of sexual harassment, school districts should be on high alert with respect to their internal Title IX policies, staff, and training. Otherwise, they may face complaints with the Department of Education or litigation surrounding the incidents of alleged sex or gender discrimination, sexual harassment, or interpersonal violence.