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Plessy vs. Ferguson 04/13/1896-05/1896
Separate but equal. It was created to provide the same public accommodations. It strengthened segregation throughout the U.S. Homer Plessy was the plaintiff in the case, seven-eighths white and one-eighth African American. Purchased a rail travel ticket and refused to move to an African-American car. He was arrested and charged with violating the Separate Car Act. A citizens committee decided to test the Separate Car Act as they believed it failed to define white and colored races. -
Brown v. The Board of Education
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. The NAACP encouraged African-American parents to enroll their children in white schools. All were denied. Oliver Brown was told his daughter could not attend a nearby white school and he needed to enroll her in a much further African American school far away from home. In light of the ruling, there were many widespread violent protests mainly in the southern states. -
Title IX
It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. Examples of sex discrimination include but are not limited to Denying admission of a person into an educational or training program based on sex and disqualifying a person for a research position based on sex when it is irrelevant to the ability to perform the job and providing unequal educational resources to students of one sex compared to another. -
Goss v. Lopez
Nine students from Central High School were suspended for ten days for disrupting and damaging school property. Ohio law gave the principal the power to suspend the students. Three judges decided the student's rights were violated. To due process of law. The court reprimanded the school for violation of the 14th Amendment because the school failed to meet minimum requirements prior to the suspension of the students. -
Education of all Handicapped Children Act
The EHA Act provided free public education to any child with a disability in every state. The law was passed to meet four goals. 1. To ensure special education services were available for children who need them. 2. To guarantee that decisions about services to students with disabilities are fair and appropriate
3. To establish specific management and auditing requirements for special education
4. To provide federal funds to help the states educate students with disabilities -
Plyler v. Doe
Ensured children living in the U.S. without legal immigration documentation could access a primary education. The Tyler Independent School District began charging $1,000 per undocumented child at the beginning of the 1978-1979 school year. The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund filed a class action lawsuit on September 6, 1977. In June of 1982, the Department of Education ruled that the right of undocumented students to attend public school is guaranteed. -
New Jersey v. T.L.O. 1985
The United States Supreme Court established the standards by which a public school official can search a student in a school environment. This case was centered around T.L.O. whom a school official searched after being caught smoking in the bathroom. She was suspended and charged by police. She fought the charges based on the search of her purse. The Supreme Court ruled that her rights were not violated. School officials must have reasonable suspicion to search a student. -
Bethel School District #43 v. Fraser
The Supreme Court ruled that public school officials can prohibit student speech that is vulgar, lewd, or offensive.
Matthew Fraser was suspended for three days from Bethel High School after he gave a speech that spoke of sexual language while nominating a classmate for student council. Fraser tried appealing his suspension but lost and filed a lawsuit against the school claiming his freedom of speech rights were violated. -
Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe
At Santa Fe High School, a student was selected to lead prayer, often described as overtly Christian. Three students decided to sue the school because it violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. The Court held that this action did constitute school-sponsored prayer because the loudspeakers that the students used for their invocations were owned by the school. -
Board of Education of Independent School District #92 of Pottawatomie County v. Earls
The U.S. Supreme Court, on June 27, 2002, ruled (5–4) that suspicionless drug testing of students participating in competitive extracurricular activities did not violate the Fourth Amendment. Two students at Tecumseh High School, Lindsay Earls and Daniel James, and their parents filed suit against the school board, challenging the policy as a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals favored Earls and James, deciding that the policy violated the Fourth Amendment.