CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES FOR EDUCATORS
SUMMER 2002
Joan DelFattore
E-mail: jdel@udel.edu
302-737-7124 (home and fax)
Homepage: www.english.udel.edu/jdel
CLASS MEETINGS
Week of May 20: Thurs., May 23, 5-9:15
Week of May 27: No class – get started on readings
Week of June 3: Thurs., June 6, 5-9:15
Fri., June 7, 5-9:15
Sat., June 8, 9-3:30
Week of June 10: No class – catch up with readings
Week of June 17: Thurs., June 20, 5-9:15
Fri., June 21, 5-9:15
Sat., June 22, 9-3:30
Week of June 24: Thurs., June 27, 5-9:15
Fri., June 28: No class – wrap up final paper
Sat., June 29: 9-3:30
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Participants in this course will:
* Become familiar with the basic principles and practices of constitutional
law as they apply to
teachers and school administrators;
* Conduct in-depth analyses of three issues: religious expression
in public schools, ideological
challenges to curricular materials, and racial and
gender discrimination
* Develop the vocabulary and interpretive skills necessary to
comprehend legal decisions and
scholarship dealing with applications of constitutional
law to public schools;
* Conduct both instructor-directed and independent online research into relevant controversies;
* Independently research and analyze a Supreme Court case.
TEXTS
Robert S. Alley, ed., The Constitution and Religion:
Leading Supreme Court Cases on Church
and State (Prometheus, 1999).
Joan DelFattore, What Johnny Shouldn’t Read: Textbook Censorship in America (Yale, 1992).
Joan DelFattore, “Textbook Controversies Based on Content, Values, and
Viewpoints,”
unpublished update on textbook challenges
(www.english.udel.edu/jdel/textbooks.html).
James Fraser, Between Church and State: Religion and Public
Education in a Multicultural
America (St. Martin’s, 1999).
Michael Lassiter and Andrew Lewis, eds., Moderates' Dilemma: Massive
Resistance to School
Desegregation in Virginia (University Press
of Virginia, 1998).
TECHNOLOGY
Each participant is expected to have an active e-mail account and check
it regularly. You will
also be expected to access information online and print it. Participants
who do not have their
own computers, printers, and Internet access are welcome to use the
equipment on campus.
ATTENDANCE POLICY
Participants are expected to attend every meeting. If special
circumstances arise, please
contact the instructor in advance if at all possible.
GRADING
Mid-term test:
25 points
Final test:
25 points
Final paper:
50 points
SCHEDULE
Thurs., May 23: Introduction to the course
Overview of the federal court system
Overview of the evolution of thought regarding religion in public schools
from
their inception to the present
Assignment for the next class: Read Fraser, Between
Church and State
Note: Please bring the Alley book to the next class
Thurs., June 6: Public lecture series: “Religious Expression
in Public Schools”
Discussion of Fraser, Chapters 1-6
Tape of the Supreme Court oral argument in Abington v. Schempp (re
school-
sponsored Bible reading and prayer)
In-class reading and discussion of the Supreme Court decision in Abington
Tape of the Supreme Court oral argument in Westside Community Schools
v.
Mergens (re student-initiated, student-led religious meetings)
In-class reading and discussion of the Supreme Court decision in Mergens
Discussion of the distinctions between these two decisions
Discussion of the remaining Fraser chapters
Explanation of the assignment for the final paper
Assignment for the next class: Read Alley, McCollum
v. Board of Education (re
religious classes in public schools); Zorach v. Clausen (re released
time for
religious instruction); Stone v. Graham (re posting the Ten Commandments
in
public schools); Wallace v. Jaffree (re moments of silence); Lee
v. Weisman (re
graduation prayer)
Fri., June 7: Discussion of the readings
Background on Lee v. Weisman (re graduation prayer)
Tape of the Supreme Court oral argument in Lee v. Weisman
Background on Wallace v. Jaffree (re moments of silence)
Tape of the Supreme Court oral argument in Wallace v. Jaffree
Discussion of ongoing issues relating to moments of silence, graduation
prayer
Assignment for the next class: Review for test
Sat., June 8: Morning session:
Test on religious expression in the public schools
Discuss test
Afternoon session:
In-class online research on C.H. v. Oliva (re a child’s right to
read aloud in class
from a children’s Bible); news articles and court decisions
Introduction to challenges to curricular materials
Assignment for the next class: Read DelFattore, What
Johnny Shouldn’t Read
Thurs., June 20: Public lecture series: “Challenges to Curricular
Materials”
Discussion of the chapters of Johnny dealing with Mozert v. Hawkins
County
(re a protest against the Holt Rinehart Winston Basic Reading Series)
Videotape: Censorship in Our Schools (re Mozert)
Discussion of the chapter of Johnny dealing with creationism/evolution
Tape of the Supreme Court oral argument in Edwards v. Aguillard
(re the
teaching of evolution and creationism)
Discussion of the rest of the reading
Tape of Supreme Court oral argument in Pico v. Island Trees (re
a school
board’s right to remove books from a school library)
Assignment for the next class: Alley, Edwards v.
Aguillard;
DelFattore, “Textbook Controversies Based on Content, Values, and
Viewpoints” www.english.udel.edu/jdel/textbooks.html
Fri., June 21: Discussion of the readings
In-class reading and discussion of Heather Has Two Mommies, Daddy’s
Roommate, and Nappy Hair
Introduction to civil rights issues in public schools
Tape: Supreme Court oral argument in Loving v. Virginia (re
interracial
marriage)
Tape: Supreme Court oral argument in Cooper v. Aaron (re school
desegregation)
Assignment for the next class: Read Lassiter and Lewis;
read
Brown v. Board of Education, May 17, 1954 (re racial desegregation
in the
schools of Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware). To get
this decision,
access
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=347&page=483
Sat., June 22: Morning session:
Discussion of the readings
Videotape: After Ten Years: The Court and the School
(re desegregation)
Background on student free-speech rights
Tape of Supreme Court oral argument in Tinker v. Des Moines (re
the right of
students to express controversial political views in school)
Tape of Supreme Court oral argument in Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier (re
the
authority of school officials to control the student press)
Discussion of the distinctions between these two cases
Afternoon session:
In the computer lab, participants will divide into small groups, each of
which
will carry out one of the following activities and prepare to share its
findings with the rest of the class:
1. Go into Yahoo! or another browser of your choice and find websites
that
deal with the controversy over evolution and creationism. Go into
two
websites that are favorable to evolution and two that are favorable to
creationism. Select websites that are put up by organizations – e.g.,
the
National Center for Science Education and the Institute for Creation
Research – rather than the ravings of any individual. Summarize briefly
what you find on each site.
2. Access LEXIS/NEXIS, then General News. Select “Previous
year” as the
time span to be covered. Type in keywords of your choice – e.g.,
“sex
education,” “phonics and textbook,” or “Huckleberry Finn and NAACP”
– and refine the search as necessary. The objective is to select
5 or 6
news articles on a topic of interest to you that relates to challenges
to
curricular materials. Summarize what you learn from these news articles.
3. Go into Yahoo! or another browser and search under “banned books.”
Choose three websites and briefly summarize what you learn from each
of them.
Assignment for the next class: Review for the test
Thurs., June 27: Public lecture series: “Brown and
Beyond”
Test on curricular challenges, racial desegregation, and the other constitutional
issues covered in this half of the course
Assignment for next class: Complete final papers
Sat., June 29: Both sessions: Presentation of final papers
DIRECTIONS FOR THE PAPER ASSIGNMENT
I. Choosing a Decision
Your paper should focus on one of the Supreme Court decisions listed
below. If you would prefer to
write about a different Supreme Court decision having to do with constitutional
issues in public schools,
please talk with me about it. First, though, you should check
LEXIS to be sure that the news stories
you will need to write this paper are available for the case you are
considering. It would also be a good
idea to read through the decision before you propose it, since some
of those I omitted from this list are
unusually difficult or require extensive background knowledge.
Good News Club v. Milford Central School (2001). The Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts, and 4-H Club met
in a school building after school hours. A local pastor argued
that school officials were thereby obliged
to allow him to conduct a children’s Bible club on the same terms.
Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education (1999). The mother
of a fifth-grade student sued school
officials for failing to protect her daughter against sexual harassment
by a classmate. Among other
things, the courts were asked to consider whether school officials
can be held responsible for
student-to-student speech.
Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet (1994). The
Supreme Court was asked to decide
whether the State of New York could carve out a public school district
whose pupils were all,
or nearly all, members of a particular group of Hasidic Jews, thus
effectively giving control of the
district to members of that religious community.
Board of Education v. Pico (1982). A school board summarily
removed books from the school
library on the grounds that the books were “anti-American, anti-Christian,
anti-Semitic, and just
plain filthy." Students asked the courts to restore the books
and to vindicate the students’ right
to receive information.
II. Collecting Additional Material
1. If you do not have access to LEXIS/NEXIS at home or at work,
you will have to print out
the material for your paper in the campus computer lab or in a public
library that has LEXIS.
In LEXIS/NEXIS, go to Legal Research, then Get a Case. Read all
of the decisions in your
case – trial court, appeals court, Supreme Court. There may be
more than one decision at a
given level; include any that are substantive, but ignore those that
are merely procedural (e.g.,
decisions that do no more than remand a case to another court or grant
permission to file a brief).
You can also ignore the headnotes and footnotes, although if you happen
to come across one
that’s useful to you, by all means include it.
You can read the decisions online, taking careful notes, but it would
probably be easier to
print them out so you can underline, write in the margin, etc. Some
of the decisions may be
lengthy, so choose an appropriate time and place for printing.
After you choose a case, skim
through all of the decisions online before doing anything else to be
sure that you really want to
work on this particular topic. Otherwise, you could either waste
a lot of time or end up doing
a project in which you aren’t really interested.
2. Go back to the LEXIS homepage and select News and then General
News. Print out seven
to ten newspaper articles about the case. If the same story appears
in more than one newspaper
– e.g., Associated Press stories are often picked up by many papers
– use the one that has the
highest word count. (The word count appears in the listing of
the story.) Be aware that the same
story will have different headlines in different newspapers.
Try to find a variety of stories that cover
the period before, during, and after the dispute goes to court.
The purpose is to get a sense of the
events and personalities behind the legal case. You might also
want to use editorials and letters to
the editor as an indication of community sentiment. It is not
a good idea to use the title of the case
as the keywords for your search, since few news articles identify lawsuits
by their titles. Instead,
choose words that would appear in a news article – e.g., the name of
the town, the school, or the
main participants in the dispute. You could also use keywords
indicating the central issue – e.g.,
“harassment” or “club.”
III. Writing the Paper
General Specifications:
1. The paper must be typed, double-spaced, in 12-point font.
It should be approximately
12-15 pages in length.
2. Copies of the news stories must be attached. Do not attach copies of any decisions.
3. There should be no footnotes; cite all references in parentheses
following each quotation.
It does not matter what format you use as long as you are consistent
throughout the paper.
No Works Cited page is necessary.
Content:
1. Using news articles and background information from the
lower court decisions, write
approximately two pages explaining how this dispute arose. What
caused it? Who were the
main players? Why did it end up in court instead of being settled
amicably? How did other
members of the community feel about it?
2. Write approximately one to two pages about each of the
lower court decisions (not one
to two pages total). Your summary of each decision should not
attempt to cover every point
the court raised. Omit any part of the decision that was based
on a procedural question, such
as whether someone had standing to sue; just concentrate on the main
topic, such as
student-to-student harassment or the removal of books from a school
library. Be sure that
your summary clearly answers the following questions: Who won?
What were the two or
three most important issues that caused the court to rule the way it
did? What did the court
say about each of them?
3. Write approximately three pages explaining the Supreme
Court’s decision. Who won?
By how many votes? What were the most important reasons that
caused the majority of the
Court to vote as it did? If there was a dissent, what were the
most important reasons for it?
4. Write approximately two pages of commentary on the case
you have just analyzed. How
significant is it? What difference is it likely to make in the
day-to-day workings of the public
schools? Does the Supreme Court’s ruling agree with your personal
views? Why or why not?
Is there anything in any of the decisions that made a particularly
strong impression on you, either
favorably or unfavorably? Did the decisions themselves or anything
you read about them cause
you to change or refine your views about the issue?
PAPER GRADING
The paper will be graded according to the following criteria:
1. The paper must address one of the decisions listed on the Paper Assignment
sheet unless
you had advance approval to use a different decision.
2. The paper must include all of the sections listed on the Paper Assignment
sheet as well as the
required attachments.
3. All factual statements must be accurate.
4. All assertions, arguments, and interpretations must be clearly based
on the court decisions
and news stories you read for this paper.
Be sure to include examples, quotations, and other
references to the source material. Do not
use the overall topic of the decision as a springboard
for a lengthy statement of personal views that are
only tangentially or generically related to the
material you are supposed to be analyzing.
5. It does not matter whether your viewpoints coincide with mine.
I have given As to papers with
which I disagreed and Ds to papers with which I
agreed; the relevant question is how well the paper
meets the standards listed here.
6. The paper should be written in correct English – spelling, punctuation, subject/verb agreement, etc.
RUBRIC
D to F: Deviates significantly from the instructions and criteria.
B to C+: Includes all required information but displays one or
more of the following elements: numerous
or significant factual errors; excessive repetition,
irrelevance, or superficiality; numerous or significant
mechanical errors.
A to B+: Competently and accurately states the major issues in
the lawsuit, includes clearly stated
conclusions and well-reasoned arguments, and is
well-written.