Justia Education Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff was convicted in 1993 of carnal knowledge of a minor without the use of force. In this appeal, plaintiff challenged Va. Code sections 9.1-900 et seq. and 18.2-370.5, which, together, classified her as a sexually violent offender and prevented her from entering the grounds of a school or daycare without first gaining permission from the Virginia circuit court and the school board or the owner of the daycare. Unless plaintiff gains such permission, she is not able to meet with her stepson's teachers at school, attend his school functions, or drop him off at or pick him up from school. Plaintiff's complaint included four counts: she alleged that defendants have violated her substantive due process, procedural due process, associational, and free exercise rights. The injuries she alleged with respect to the first, third, and fourth counts stemmed from impediments the Virginia statute and the school board policy placed on her ability to access school and church property. The court held that because she had not yet attempted to undertake the requisite steps to access these properties, she could not demonstrate that these claims were justiciable. While plaintiff's second count was justiciable, she failed to state a procedural due process claim upon which relief could be granted. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of her claims. View "Doe v. Virginia Dept. of State Police" on Justia Law

Krieger, age 53, cannot pay her debts. She lives with her mother in a rural community; they have only monthly income from governmental programs. She is too poor to move and her car, more than 10 years old, needs repairs. She lacks Internet access. In her bankruptcy proceeding, Educational Credit moved to exempt her student loans from discharge; 11 U.S.C.523(a)(8) excludes educational loans “unless excepting such debt from discharge under this paragraph would impose an undue hardship on the debtor.” The district court reversed the bankruptcy court, noting that Krieger, although unable to pay even $1 per year, had not enrolled in a program that offered a 25-year payment schedule. The Seventh Circuit reversed, in favor of Krieger. “Undue hardship” requires showing that the debtor cannot maintain a minimal standard of living if forced to repay; that additional circumstances exist indicating that this situation is likely to persist for a significant portion of the repayment period; and that the debtor has made good faith efforts to repay. The court noted that Krieger incurred the debt to obtain paralegal training at a community college, has made about 200 applications in 10 years, and used a substantial part of her divorce settlement to pay off as much of the educational loan as possible. View "Krieger v. Educ. Credit Mgmt. Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were high school students from Roswell, New Mexico who belonged to a religious group called "Relentless." They sued the Roswell Independent school district and its superintendent seeking declaratory and injunctive relief for allegedly violating their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by preventing them from distributing 2500 rubber fetus dolls to other students. They also challenged the District's policies requiring preapproval before distributing any non-school-sponsored materials on school grounds. Teachers complained that students' preoccupation with the dolls disrupted classroom instruction: "[w]hile teachers were trying to instruct, students threw dolls and doll heads across classrooms, at one another, and into wastebaskets. Some teachers said the disruptions took eight to 10 minutes each class period, and others said their teaching plans were derailed entirely. An honors freshman English class canceled a scheduled test because students had become engaged in name calling and insults over the topic of abortion. A Roswell security officer described the day as 'a disaster' because of the dolls." A magistrate judge granted summary judgment for the District on all claims and Plaintiffs appealed. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of Plaintiffs' free speech, free exercise and equal protection claims. The Court also affirmed dismissal of Plaintiffs' facial challenge to the District's preapproval policies. View "Taylor v. Roswell Independent School Dist. " on Justia Law

Defendants, parents of a minor child who filed an unsuccessful administrative complaint against the school district, asserted that the district court's denial of attorneys' fees to the school district in turn rendered defendants prevailing parties. The court affirmed, however, the district court's denial of attorneys' fees to defendants because defeating a request for attorneys' fees was not the type of success on the merits required to establish prevailing party status. View "Alief Indep. Sch. Dist v. C. C." on Justia Law

During her second grade year and after three years of disagreement between school officials and her parents over requests for certain disability accommodations for A.C., a minor with Type 1 diabetes,the principal made reports to Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services alleging that the parents were medically abusing A.C. The parents filed suit, claiming that the principal’s reports were made in retaliation to their disability accommodation requests and violated the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act, 2 U.S.C. 12203 and 29 U.S.C. 794(a). The district court found that the parents did not prove a prima facie element of their case and could not prove that the reasons given for making the child-abuse reports were a pretext for retaliation. The Sixth Circuit reversed, stating that the district court prematurely placed on the parents the burden of rebutting the school’s stated reasons for its actions. Evidence of falsity in the reports of abuse coupled with the temporal proximity of those reports to requests for accommodations is sufficient to permit an inference of causation. View "A.C.v. Shelby Cnty. Bd. of Educ." on Justia Law

G.C. began attending school in the Owensboro Public School District as an out-of-district student in 2005. In 2009, G.C. was caught sending text messages in class. School officials confiscated his cell phone and read the text messages. Because this was the last in a series of disciplinary infractions, Superintendent Vick revoked G.C.’s out-of-district status, barring him from attending Owensboro High School. G.C. filed suit, raising federal and state-law claims. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants. The Sixth Circuit reversed, based on a due process claim that G.C. was denied a hearing prior to expulsion as required by Kentucky statute and a Fourth Amendment claim based on the 2009 search, in which G.C. contends that school officials violated his constitutional rights when they read text messages on his phone without the requisite reasonable suspicion. The court affirmed rejection of a Rehabilitation Act claim that the defendants failed to identify G.C. as disabled under section 504. View "Cain v. Owensboro Pub. Schs." on Justia Law

After the child complained of burning during urination, school nurse Sliwowski conducted a visual examination of the six-year-old female student’s genital area for medical purposes. The student’s mother alleges that this medical examination violated the child’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. The district court denied summary judgment and denied Sliwowski qualified immunity, finding that the visual examination, conducted without consent and in the absence of a medical emergency, was an unreasonable search. The Sixth Circuit reversed, stating that the law was not clearly established regarding whether a medically motivated examination by a school nurse exposing a student’s body constitutes a search subject to the protections of the Fourth Amendment and that Sliwowski is entitled to qualified immunity. View "Hearring v. Sliwowski" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, by and through her parents, sued the school principals and school board pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging violations of her First Amendment right to free speech and expression and her Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process and equal protection. Defendants prohibited plaintiff from wearing and on one occasion punished her for wearing Confederate flag shirts at school. When, as here, student speech threatened to disrupt school, school officials could prohibit or punish that speech. The school officials therefore did not violate plaintiff's First Amendment right when they refused to allow her to wear Confederate flag shirts and protest shirts at school, and the dress codes and their enforcement did not infringe on plaintiff's Fourteenth Amendment rights. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment for defendants. View "Hardwick v. Heyward" on Justia Law

In 1999, Geraldine Fuhr successfully sued to be instated as varsity boys basketball coach at Hazel Park High School, where she had been employed as varsity girls basketball coach. For five years she coached both teams. In 2006, she was removed from her position coaching varsity girls basketball. She claims that her dismissal as the varsity girls basketball coach and other acts of harassment were a result of her 1999 suit. The district court granted the district summary judgment, rejecting claims of retaliation (42 U.S.C. 2000e-3(a)), gender discrimination, and hostile work environment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, noting a substantial time gap between the suit and the complained-of actions and the district’s complained-of actions were not discriminatory. View "Fuhr v. Hazel Park Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed from the district court's dismissal of her civil rights action against the District. Plaintiff sought review of her claim under section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. 794, for the District's alleged gross mismanagement of her Individualized Education Program (IEP) and failure to reasonably accommodate her disabilities. Because plaintiff plausibly stated that the District acted with gross misjudgment in failing to further modify her IEP, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. Because plaintiff appealed only the dismissal of her Rehabilitation Act claim, the court did not address the district court's rulings as to the other claims. View "Stewart v. Waco Indep. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law