By: Emma Stanley

Rulings of Famous Court Cases That Shaped U.S.

Education

Pertains to/Ruling:Desegregation/1954Struck down the

“separate-but-equal” doctrine.

1. Brown vs. Board of Education

Pertains to/Ruling:Per pupil

expenses/1973Allows any kind of

finance system to fund schools, as long as it provides a minimum education for each student.

2. San Antonio Indep. School District vs. Rodriguez

Pertains to/Ruling:Students with

limited English proficiency/1974

School districts must take steps to fix the language deficiency.

3. Lau vs. Nichols

Pertains to/Ruling:Special

education/1952A student’s IEP

should provide educational benefit in accordance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

4. Board of Education vs. Rowley

Pertains to/Ruling:Accommodating

disabilities/1987Teachers and

students should be accommodated reasonably if they have a disability.

5. School Board vs. Arline

Pertains to/Ruling:Freedom of

expression/1943Public school

officials can not force students to salute the flag. This also applies to teachers.

6. West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette

Pertains to/Ruling:Student speech/1969Constitutional right

is to be able to have freedom of speech, even symbolically.

7. Tinker vs. Des Moines Indep. Community School District

Pertains to/Ruling:Censorship/1988Said that school

newspapers, etc. could be censored by the school.

8. Hazelwood School District vs. Kuhlmeier

Pertains to/Ruling:Teacher’s

speech/1977Teachers have the

freedom of speech, but should think logically about their expressions.

9. Mt. Healthy City School District vs. Doyle

Pertains to/Ruling:School

libraries/1982School must have a

rational reason to remove books from the school library.

10. Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 vs. Pico

Pertains to/Ruling:Student

suspensions/1975Guarantees the law

of due process.

11. Goss vs. Lopez

Pertains to/Ruling:Corporal

punishment/1977Protects students

from cruel and unusual punishment.

12. Ingraham vs. Wright

Pertains to/Ruling:Searches of

students/1985Can search students

noninvasively if they have “reasonable suspicion”; they don’t have to have “probable cause”.

13. New Jersey vs. T.L.O

Pertains to/Ruling:Random drug

tests/1995Ruled that mass

drug testing of students in extracurricular activities was constitutional; However, since then, lower courts usually deem it unconstitutional.

14. Vernonia School District 47J vs. Acton

Pertains to/Ruling:Sexual

harassment/1992Allows victims of

sexual harassment in schools to sue for money damages.

15. Franklin vs. GCPS

Pertains to/Ruling:Disruptive students in

special ed/1988Discussed if it was

reasonable to expel a special ed student for more than 10 days at a time; U.S Dept. of Ed. said that this was a change in the student’s IEP, and so other methods of discipline are used.

16. Honig vs. Doe

Pertains to/Ruling:Government aid to

religious schools/1971

Said that it broke the establishment clause of the first amendment to give government salary supplements to parochial schools.

17. Lemon vs. Kurtzman

Pertains to/Ruling:Prayer at school

events/1992Prayer led by

teachers at school violates the establishment clause of the first amendment.

18. Lee vs. Weisman