Author
Joshua Dunn
Articles
Answered Prayer?
Montana case could prompt last judgment for Blaine Amendments
Supreme Court Partially Junks a Lemon
American Legion Cross Case May Make It Harder To Sue Schools Over Religion
Bullying Bolick
Attempt to remove Arizona justice fails
Suing for Desegregation in Minnesota
Will the state’s courts redraw school-district lines?
Good Advice
Trump overturns Obama guidance on race in public schools
Judging Choice
Court victory for charter schools in Louisiana
Judgment Day for Union Agency Fees
High court hears oral argument in Janus v. AFSCME
Snap Judgment
Should schools act as community hall monitors?
Narrow Opening for School Choice
But Blaine Amendments stand, for now
U-turn on Vouchers
Florida courts uphold tax credits
Special Education Standards
Supreme Court raises level of benefit
Hands Off My Tenure!
Unions challenge constitutionality of reforms
Old Legal Wine in New Remedial Bottles
Plaintiffs seek to overturn Rodriguez
Strictly Discrimination
Supreme Court favors race-based policies
Reaping the Whirlwind
Union victory on tenure may be short-lived
Justice Deferred
Supreme Court lets agency fees stand
Let My People Go
Teachers fight to end forced union contributions
Uncommon Confusion
Washington Supreme Court strikes down charter schools
Voucher Victory
“Disingenuous” federal officials lose battle to shut down Louisiana Scholarship Program
Heading for a Fall
State restrictions on voucher programs rest on shaky foundation
Disparate Impact Indeed
Court’s latest ruling will hurt minority students
Fool’s Gold
Office of Civil Rights takes on school finance
A Tribute to Martha Derthick
With Martha Derthick’s passing on January 12, 2015, America lost one of its preeminent scholars of American politics.
Modern Maturity for Charter Schools
Litigation shows they have arrived
Collective Panic
Court decision terrifies unions
Script Doctors
A compelling play on the wrong stage?
Bayou Backdown?
Obama administration retreats on vouchers
Ballots Not Barristers
Arizona case shows limits of litigation
Paycheck Protection
Court upholds Michigan law forbidding public schools from collecting union dues through payroll deductions
More School Dollars!
School finance claims shuffle back to life
Digital Discipline
We aren’t sure if you can say that
Desegregation Redux
Desegregation cases affecting hundreds of districts haven’t been concluded.
Can Carrots Become Sticks?
Court knows coercion when it sees it
Title IX at Trial
If you schedule it, will they come?
Door Still Closed
Alabama plaintiffs lose federal school finance challenge
Mickey Mouse Strikes Back
Voucher wars heat up in Colorado
Budget Buster
Teachers sue to protect pensions
Trouble in Kansas
Parents in a wealthy district sue to pay more taxes
Thou Shalt Not Say Jesus
Do elementary school students have free-speech rights?
The Ninth Circuit v. Reality
Highly qualified teachers don’t grow on trees
Educational Providence
New York courts close one door, federal money opens another
2+2=Litigation
New front opens in the math wars
No Federal Case
Court says charter school is not a state actor
Strange Bedfellows
Students find unexpected ally in the Christian Right
Supreme Modesty
From strip searches to school funding, the Court treads lightly
Timeout
Schools Win in Court
Language Barriers
Arizonans battle federal court order to spend more
Home Schoolers Strike Back
California case centers on parents' rights
Court Jousters
Plaintiffs exploit weaknesses in NCLB
Free and Appropriate
Parent's wealth muddies special-education tuition case
Doubtful Jurisprudence
Court offers schools little guidance
Courts and Choice
Testing the constitutionality of charters and vouchers
The Enforcers
Parents may gain right to sue over NCLB
Adequately Fatigued
Court rulings disappoint plaintiffs
Judging Money
When courts decide how to spend taxpayer dollars
Affirmative Action Docketed
The Supreme Court takes up race-based school assignment
Virtual Legality
Unions and Home Schoolers Attack Internet Education
Florida Grows a Lemon
Florida’s supreme court is no stranger to political warfare. Before the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bush v. Gore in favor of George W. Bush, the Florida court had ruled in favor of Al Gore. And the same court played a crucial role in the state’s extraction of an $11.3 billion settlement from the tobacco industry […]
A Setback in Dover
Last rites for Intelligent Design
Blog Posts/Multimedia
Supreme Court Denies Review but Offers Roadmap for High School Coach Who Prayed
Four justices hint they might be willing to overturn a Scalia opinion some saw as curtailing the free exercise of religion.
Quelle Horreur! New York Times Shocked to Learn That People Who Disagree with the New York Times Have Constitutional Rights
Conservatives didn’t weaponize the First Amendment; the authors of the Bill of Rights did.
Agency Fees Could Be Back on Death Row
If the four Supreme Court justices who sided with Friedrichs vote to hear Mark Janus’s case, and if Neil Gorsuch votes according to expectations, agency fees could be dead by the end of the court’s next term.
The Future of Friedrichs
With Justice Antonin Scalia’s unexpected passing, we can’t help but ask what will happen with Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which appeared headed to a 5-4 split.
Colorado Supreme Court Won’t Tell Legislature How to Allocate Tax Dollars
In the real world, limited resources force state legislatures to make tough choices about allocating tax dollars to roads, police, prisons, parks, and K-12 education.
Big Impact: Supreme Court Housing Decision Could Have Significant Effect on Education
The education community should be watching to see how the Supreme Court rules on a housing case from Dallas which considers whether plaintiffs can bring “disparate impact” claims under the Fair Housing Act (FHA).
Memo to Teachers’ Unions: Now Might Be a Good Time to Start Panicking
In Friedrichs, ten California teachers are arguing that agency fees (combined with onerous “opt-out” procedures) violate their rights to freedom of speech and association
Who Needs the Law When You Have OCR?
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights lacks any reasonable legal foundation for its adventures in educational management.
Educating for Infancy
Schools, we are constantly told, are supposed to educate students for citizenship. Part of being an American citizen is learning to tolerate speech that you don’t like.
Disparate Distortions: Obama Administration Doublespeak Undermines School Discipline
Today’s guidelines announced in Baltimore by the Justice and Education Departments brings the tortured logic of disparate impact to school discipline.
Colorado School Funding Hike Goes Down in Flames
Voters think Colorado already has good schools and were not in the mood to approve the largest tax hike in state history.
Signs of Judicial Sanity in Colorado
The court’s decisive ruling upholding the constitutionality of the current system will make it much more difficult to convince Colorado voters to open their wallets.
Limiting What Students Can Say Using School Computers
Courts are undoubtedly going to be called upon to draw lines which will inevitably have some appearance of arbitrariness.
Alabama School Choice Decision as Theater of the Absurd
The AEA and other Alabama choice opponents had better pray for a miracle, or prepare for the country’s newest tax credit program to become law.
Union Contracts: Stronger than Acts of God
Few good things came out of Hurricane Katrina but one has been the transformation of the New Orleans’ school system.
School Finance Litigation: With defeats like these, who needs victories?
Last Thursday, Washington’s Supreme Court ruled that the state legislature needs to spend more on education. At first glance, the ruling looks like significant victory for the plaintiffs, but a close reading of the ruling shows that looks can be deceiving.
Public Advocates Knows Best?
In our latest Legal Beat column, Martha Derthick and I discuss a case, Renee v. Duncan, where the 9th Circuit held that teachers seeking alternative certification could not count as highly qualified under No Child Left Behind.
South Carolina Leading the Pack?
South Carolina is on the cusp of leapfrogging most of the competition by passing one of the most ambitious pieces of school choice legislation in the country.
Money and Good Intentions Won’t Fix Our Schools
Last week the media reported the apparently shocking news that the Kansas City, Missouri School District school board voted 5-4 to close nearly half of its schools, 26 of 61 schools in the district. But those familiar with the district were not surprised. The real question is not why the school board has decided to close so many schools but why it took them so long.
Is Arne Duncan’s new civil rights crusade unconstitutional?
On Monday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that his department will expand its efforts in civil rights enforcement. Like everything this sounds fantastic in the abstract. Who after all publicly declares that they oppose protecting civil rights? The details, though, paint a more troublesome picture.
Christian Law Firms Are Leading Defenders of Free Speech in Schools
In “Strange Bedfellows,” Martha Derthick and I wrote on a case out of Texas, Palmer v. Waxahachie Independent School District, that brought two unusual groups together on the same side: supporters of John Edwards and Christian conservatives.
Legal Beat Update
The new issue of Education Next includes a “legal beat” column by Martha Derthick and myself that discusses three important rulings from the Supreme Court’s last term. “Receiving almost no attention but potentially of utmost significance,” we wrote, “was Horne v. Flores, a case about English-language learning in which the court divided narrowly along ideological lines, with Kennedy joining the five-member majority.” Anyone doubting the potential significance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Horne v. Flores should consider two recent developments in Florida and Colorado.
Colorado Supreme Court Jumps into the Abyss of School Finance
Colorado’s state Supreme Court defied national trends on Monday, handing down a decision in Lobato v. State that thrusts the judiciary into the middle of the state’s educational finance disputes.
