On May 16, 2019, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA), an anti-affirmative action group, filed yet another lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin (the University). This is the third such suit SFFA has filed against the University. The new lawsuit alleges the University violates the Equal Rights Amendment of the Texas Constitution by considering race in the admissions process. A similar lawsuit between the parties was dismissed in April due to a lack of standing.

Top Ten Percent Plan

Texas passed a law in 1997 known as the “Top Ten Percent Plan” (TTPP) which requires public state universities to admit all applicants from Texas who rank in the top 10% of their high school graduating class. This law was modified in 2009 for the University to allow for automatic admission of 75% of the incoming freshman class, with the remaining 25% to be chosen based on admissions criteria. Currently, students in the top 6% of their graduating class are eligible for automatic admission at the University in this 75% group.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether a federal law prohibiting employers from discriminating because of sex also protects LGBTQ individuals.

Background of Pending Cases

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating against an individual “because of” that individual’s “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” In two consolidated cases—Bostock v. Clayton County and Zarda v. Altitude Express—the Court will decide whether Title VII’s ban on “sex” discrimination also prohibits employment discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation. And in a third case—R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC—the Court will decide whether the sex discrimination ban also prohibits discrimination based on an individual’s status as transgender. All three cases will be argued on October 8, 2019.

On April 23, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument in Department of Commerce v. New York, No. 18-966.  The argument focused on three main issues: (1) whether the District Court erred in enjoining the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce from reinstating a question about citizenship to the 2020 decennial census on the ground that the secretary’s decision violated the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. 701 et seq; (2) whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the APA, a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker — including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking executive branch officials — without a strong showing that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis; and (3) whether the Secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census violated the enumeration clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) has made opioid overdoses a priority.  HHS initiatives include educating doctors about being more careful in prescribing painkillers.  The Alabama Department of Education and Department of Public Health took that one step further and recently announced a new educational program designed to reduce deaths caused by opioids.  The new, statewide program will provide Alabama high schools with access to Naloxone, the opioid-overdose reversal drug.  This program is the first in the United States to train school administrators, coaches, and teachers in how to use this life-saving drug.  Prior to this program, only nurses could administer Naloxone in Alabama schools.  The Naloxone supplied to schools under this program, which costs approximately $178 per dose, was paid for by a grant, not taxpayer funds.

In February 2019, the U.S. Department of Education released new Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (“FERPA”) guidance about schools’ and school districts’ responsibilities under FERPA relating to disclosures of student information to school resource officers, law enforcement units, and other stakeholders to explain and clarify how FERPA protects student privacy while ensuring the health and safety of all in the school community.  See: https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/sites/default/files/resource_document/file/SRO_FAQs_2-5-19_0.pdf.

FERPA permits schools and districts to disclose education records (and the personally identifiable information (“PII”) contained in those records) without consent if the “school officials” have “legitimate educational interests” in the education records.  Each school or school district must include in its annual notification what constitutes a “school official” and what constitutes a “legitimate educational interest.”  Law enforcement who are employees of a school or district, would typically be considered a “school official.”  Law enforcement that are off-duty police officers or school resource officers would typically be considered a “school official” if they fall into four specific categories.  The categories include performing an institutional service or function for which the school or district would  otherwise use employees, are under the “direct control” of the school or district with respect to the use and maintenance of the education records, are subject to FERPA’s use and re-disclosure requirements in 34 CFR § 99.33(a) allowing PII from education records to be used only for the purposes for which the disclosure was made (e.g., to promote school safety and the physical security of students) and limits the re-disclosure of PII from education records, and meets the criteria specified in the school or district’s annual notification of FERPA rights for being school officials with legitimate educational interests in the education records.

On February 26, 2019, the Supreme Court of Missouri issued an en banc opinion in R.M.A. v. Blue Springs Sch. Dist., No. SC96683.  The court held that a transgender student who was barred from using the boys’ locker room had stated a valid cause of action for sex discrimination in violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act (“MHRA”).

R.M.A., a female to male transgender student, attended school in Blue Springs R-IV School District (“BSSD”).  R.M.A. filed a charge of discrimination with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights (“MCHR”) in October 2014 alleging discrimination in a public accommodation based on sex.  R.M.A. alleged that he lives as a male, has changed his legal name to a traditionally male name, and presents himself as male to all faculty, staff, and other students in the School District.  R.M.A. alleged that BBSD had permitted him to participate in boys’ physical education class, boys’ football, and boys’ track, but that he had not been permitted to use the boys’ locker room or bathroom based on his sex and gender identity.

Following the school shootings at Marjory Stoneman and Santa Fe High Schools, President Trump established an executive Commission on School Safety. The Commission’s members were Betsy DeVos, U.S. Secretary of Education, Kirstjen Nelson, Secretary of Homeland Security, Alex Azar II, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Matthew Whitaker, Acting Attorney General. The Commission was charged with producing policy recommendations in an effort to help prevent future tragedies. After conducting field visits, listening sessions, and meeting with state and local leaders, the Commission issued a report calling for, among other things, “more threads of love, empathy, and connection” in our country’s “moral fabric.”

The report covers a host of school safety topics, including proposed best practices for improving school climate, increasing access to school-based mental health services, coordinating with the media in reporting safety breaches, and school discipline. The report also recommends improving and increasing school safety training, including modules on active shooter preparedness.

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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.