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The State Judiciary’s Role in Fulfilling Brown’s Promise
After a brief overview of school finance litigation since Rodriguez and school desegregation cases since Brown, Part I argues that the "adequacy" model of reform addresses many of the underlying concerns of the equity model without sharing its methodological and strategic shortcomings. Part II focuses in more detail on Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. State ("CFE"). Part III argues that education reform that is implemented after a finding that a state has violated a state constitutional duty should: (1) equalize funding to the extent necessary to guarantee certain minimum necessary inputs such as qualified teachers, small class sizes, adequate physical infrastructure, and other instrumentalities of learning; and (2) take seriously Brown's proclamation that racial separation is inherently unequal. Part IV encourages courts to structure education reform remedies that: (1) envision a firm but limited judicial role to protect the constitutional rights of minorities from majoritarian failures without exceeding the courts' limited expertise and authority; (2) define adequacy specifically enough to minimize inter-branch tension and provide political cover for legislators who must make difficult decisions to implement education reform; and (3) prioritize collaborative decision-making involving courts, legislatures, state agencies, local school boards, unions, parents, local businesses, and civic organizations, partially through a process analogous to negotiated rulemaking in the administrative law context. Part V borrows several elements from environmental law and proposes a method for implementing education reform that makes state legislatures ultimately accountable for educational outcomes. Finally, Part VI explores some of the daunting challenges faced by education reform efforts and suggests that rigid ex ante injunctions may fail to account for the wide range of obstacles faced by school districts.Separate But Unequal: The Status of America’s Public Schools
Transcript of the symposium, which took place at the University of Michigan Law School on Saturday, February 9, 2002 in Hutchins Hall.“I’m Usually the Only Black in My Class”: The Human and Social Costs of Within-School Segregation
The work that has focused on within-school segregation has been most concerned with how this phenomenon limits the educational opportunities and might incur a psychological toll on the mass of Black students who find themselves relegated to lower-ability classrooms in integrated schools. This Article, however, allows us to begin to examine the other side of the coin. It reports on how within-school segregation practices create psychological, social, and educational pressures for those few Black students who have escaped enrollment in the least rigorous courses in their school. More precisely, the Article offers insight into how high achieving Black students in one integrated high school (referred to as Hillside) struggle with being, in most cases, the only Black student in their Advanced Placement courses. Before reporting on the experiences of these high achieving students in Part IV of this Article, Part I provides a brief review of the research literature on desegregation. The review will highlight the degree to which within-school segregation has been featured as a part of this body of work. In Parts II and III, the author then situates these high achievers within the logic of the larger study of which they were a part. Finally, in Part V, the Article concludes with a discussion of how these findings are relevant to the "the hearts and minds" of White Americans and the prospect of creating a more equitable society.Breaking Into The Academy: The 2002-2004 Michigan Journal of Race & Law Guide for Aspiring Law Professors
Guidance for individuals interested in becoming law professors.Conscious Use of Race as a Voluntary Means to Educational Ends in Elementary and Secondary Education: A Legal Argument Derived From Recent Judicial Decisions
This paper provides an in-depth examination of the ten recent court decisions concerning race-based student selection processes. As these cases will illustrate, school districts face increasing demands to justify any race-conscious selection process. The significance of meeting the demands and the implications for what appears to be an evolving legal theory is national in scope and broad in application. Some have even argued that some of these cases mark a departure away from the Court's thinking in Brown v. the Board of Education. It should also be noted that each of the cases mentioned above occurred in the context of some form of school choice, which heightens the significance of the research and the implications of its findings.Foreword, Separate but Unequal: The Status of America’s Public Schools
This Symposium, convened by the Michigan Journal of Race & Law, was designed to address many of the issues raised by Donny Gonzalez, a student at a Washington, D.C. high school, on the subject of poverty and race and its effects on school-aged youth. Bringing together a diverse group of speakers and attracting a broad cross-section of the university and Ann Arbor communities, the Separate but Unequal Symposium addressed a range of issues, including: the ongoing relevance of integration, the role of charter schools and other alternative programs, and promising strategies for achieving greater educational equality. A theme linking these various topics was the question of what students could do to end separate and unequal schools in America.The Children Left Behind: How Zero Tolerance Impacts Our Most Vulnerable Youth
The Michigan Journal of Race & Law Symposium, February 8th and 9th, 2002, at the University of Michigan examined the issue: Separate but Unequal: The Status of America's Public Schools. In the past, children of color were expressly denied an equal education on the basis of their race. Today's policies deny many children of color access to educational programs and supports, for reasons that are neutral on their face, with devastating consequences to the students, their families and their communities. The following article explores the concerns and experiences of a public service agency with the growing application of "Zero Tolerance" policies and practices to schools and school children. The purpose of this article is to increase awareness of the nature and effects of zero tolerance policies and to explore the resultant issues that must be addressed. In the end, the persons most disproportionately affected include children of color but when zero tolerance policies result in a failure to educate some children, the consequences impact not only those children, but all of us.Direct Measures: An Alternative Form of Affirmative Action
Part I of this essay sets out in detail the direct measures affirmative action program. This section also compares the program to other alternative affirmative action program experiments undertaken by various educational institutions. Parts II and III discuss the constitutionality of a direct measures program.Breaking Into The Academy: The 2000-2002 Michigan Journal of Race & Law Guide for Aspiring Law Professors
Once you have set your sights upon a career in law teaching you must determine how best to position yourself to obtain a job in the field. The answer is to write, publish, and otherwise bolster your credentials. Write as many papers with as many of your law school professors as you can; write onto a journal and have your article published; work as a research assistant for a professor and write with him or her; work for a judge and write bench memos and draft opinions; work for a public interest organization or a law firm and publish scholarship about the law you practice there. Whatever you do, write. In addition to providing proof of your interest in legal scholarship and supplying material from which you can fashion a job talk (a scholarly presentation that is a common feature of the interview process), writing with professors, judges, and lawyers will allow you to find mentors who will be able to vouch for your abilities when you need recommendations.Racial Profiling: “Driving While Mexican” and Affirmative Action
This Essay will focus on "racial profiling" not just in the way many people think about the term-that is, with respect to stopping motorists for traffic violations based solely on their race, so-called "Driving While Mexican" or "Driving While Black"-but also in the context of "affirmative action"-namely, using race as a factor in employment and educational decisions. More broadly, then, the author wants us to think of "racial profiling" as simply "the use of race to develop an understanding of an individual," which moves us slightly away from more pejorative notions of the phrase that have seeped into the national consciousness.
