West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943), is a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment protects students from being forced to salute the American flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance in public school. The court's 6–3 decision, delivered by Justice Robert H. Jackson, is remembered for its forceful defense of free speech and constitutional rights generally as being placed "beyond the reach of majorities and officials".
Grutter v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 306 (2003), was a landmark case of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning affirmative action in student admissions. The Court held that a student admissions process that favors "underrepresented minority groups" did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause so long as it took into account other factors evaluated on an individual basis for every applicant. The decision largely upheld the Court's decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), which allowed race to be a consideration in admissions policy but held racial quotas to be unconstitutional. In Gratz v. Bollinger (2003), a separate case decided on the same day as Grutter, the Court struck down a points-based admissions system that awarded an automatic bonus to the admissions scores of minority applicants.
Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97 (1968), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that invalidated an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of human evolution in the public schools. The Court held that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits a state from requiring, in the words of the majority opinion, "that teaching and learning must be tailored to the principles or prohibitions of any religious sect or dogma." The Supreme Court declared the Arkansas statute unconstitutional because it violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. After this decision, some jurisdictions passed laws that required the teaching of creation science alongside evolution when evolution was taught. These were also ruled unconstitutional by the Court in the 1987 case Edwards v. Aguillard.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution's freedom of speech protections limit the ability of American public officials to sue for defamation. The decision held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or candidate for public office, not only must they prove the normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—they must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning the defendant either knew the statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it might be false. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is frequently ranked as one of the greatest Supreme Court decisions of the modern era.
Student rights are those rights, such as civil, constitutional, contractual and consumer rights, which regulate student rights and freedoms and allow students to make use of their educational investment. These include such things as the right to free speech and association, to due process, equality, autonomy, safety and privacy, and accountability in contracts and advertising, which regulate the treatment of students by teachers and administrators. There is very little scholarship about student rights throughout the world. In general most countries have some kind of student rights enshrined in their laws and proceduralized by their court precedents. Some countries, like Romania, in the European Union, have comprehensive student bills of rights, which outline both rights and how they are to be proceduralized. Most countries, however, like the United States and Canada, do not have a cohesive bill of rights and students must use the courts to determine how rights precedents in one area apply in their own jurisdictions.
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that the electoral districts of state legislative chambers must be roughly equal in population. Along with Baker v. Carr (1962) and Wesberry v. Sanders (1964), it was part of a series of Warren Court cases that applied the principle of "one person, one vote" to U.S. legislative bodies.
The term in loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent", refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent.
Gott v. Berea College, 161 S.W. 204, was a case heard before the Kentucky Court of Appeals wherein J. S. Gott—a restaurant owner—sued the private institution of Berea College when they issued a new policy in their 1911 student manual that forbid their students from patronizing establishments not owned by the college. Gott believed that the college and its officers had purposely acted unlawfully to injure his business and reputation by enforcing their new policy. The Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the lower court of appeals and sided completely with Berea College in this case on the bases of in loco parentis. This was one of the earliest uses of in loco parentis by a private institution and would establish a precedent for decades to come.
United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64 (1994), was a federal criminal prosecution filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles against X-Citement Video and its owner, Rubin Gottesman, on three charges of trafficking in child pornography, specifically videos featuring the underaged Traci Lords. In 1989, a federal judge found Gottesman guilty and later sentenced him to one year in jail and a $100,000 fine.
Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975), was a US Supreme Court case. It held that a public school must conduct a hearing before subjecting a student to suspension. Also, a suspension without a hearing violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.
Benjamin Franklin Cameron was an American jurist from the state of Mississippi. He served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1955 to 1964. The Fifth Circuit was a key court during the civil rights era in the 1950s and 1960s as it covered Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, all of which had varying levels of racial segregation. During his tenure, Cameron, a segregationist, often found himself in the minority of civil-rights cases, with a group of more liberal judges, known as the Fifth Circuit Four, overturning Jim Crow laws. Shortly before his death, he charged the Chief Judge of the circuit with purposefully assigning these judges to cases with the intent of overturning segregation.
Tompkins v. Alabama State University, 15 F. Supp. 2d 1160, was a legal case involving affirmative action, that was decided in a United States Federal Court.
Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, 528 U.S. 152 (2000), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided an appellant who was the defendant in a criminal case cannot refuse the assistance of counsel on direct appeals. This case is in contrast to Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806 (1975), which grants criminal defendants the right to refuse counsel for trial purposes.
Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222 (1985), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, invalidated the criminal disenfranchisement provision of § 182 of the Alabama Constitution as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611 (1971), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a local city ordinance that made it a criminal offense for three or more persons to assemble on a sidewalk and "annoy" any passersby was unconstitutionally vague. Dennis Coates participated in a protest along with four other unnamed students, all of whom were convicted of violating the city ordinance. Coates appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court, which upheld the conviction. However, this conviction was overturned in the divided United States Supreme Court decision. The Court found that the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague and violated the First Amendment freedom of assembly.
Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 572 U.S. 291 (2014), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States concerning affirmative action and race- and sex-based discrimination in public university admissions. In a 6-2 decision, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause does not prevent states from enacting bans on affirmative action in education.
Hazelwood School District et al. v. Kuhlmeier et al., 484 U.S. 260 (1988), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that public school curricular student newspapers that have not been established as forums for student expression are subject to a lower level of First Amendment protection than independent student expression or newspapers established as forums for student expression.
Regents of University of California v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County, 4 Cal. 5th 607, 413 P.3d 656 (2018), was a case in which the Supreme Court of California held that universities owe a duty to protect students from foreseeable violence during curricular activities. In an opinion by Justice Ming Chin, the Court tossed out the 2010 case in which Katherine Rosen, a former UCLA student, sued the university for negligence when another student stabbed her in a chemistry lab. Following this ruling, Rosen can pursue the case again in court.
Charles Swinger Conley (1921-2010) was an Montgomery County attorney, civil rights leader and Alabama's first Black judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Macon County. He served as attorney of record for Martin Luther King Jr., the Montgomery Improvement Association, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. ___ (2023), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the forgiveness of federal student loans by the Biden administration in 2022, challenged by multiple states. The Supreme Court's ruling was issued on June 30, 2023, ruling 6–3 that the Secretary of Education did not have the power to waive student loans under the HEROES Act.
