Monday, November 23, 2015


Posts for November 23, 2015
These are the posts that are accumulated in our newsletter which goes out every 4-6 days during the school year. The posts are organized by the major units in our Con Law (5th ed.) student textbook.

California student suspension rate drops as ‘willful defiance’ punishments decline [EdSource, 11/23/15]: School suspension rates have fallen in California for students of every ethnicity in the last three years, a sign that a shift in discipline practices in many school districts is starting to have an effect, according to a study released Monday by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the UCLA Civil Rights Project.

I. Introduction to Law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court [See TOPICS 1-10 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

Delegating the Dark Side of the Force [Gerard Magliocca in “Concurring Opinions,” 11/22/15]: “With Cass Sunstein working on a book about Star Wars and the new movie soon to drop, I thought I’d take the bait and write about the constitution of the First Galactic Empire.

II. Defining the Political System: Federalism and Checks and Balances [See TOPICS 11-15 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

III. The Political System: Voting and Campaigns [See TOPICS 16-20 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

AP: Most GOP candidates flunk climate science [AP, 11/22/15]: When it comes to climate science, two of the three Democratic presidential candidates are A students, while most of the Republican contenders are flunking, according to a panel of scientists who reviewed candidates' comments.

IV. Criminal Law and Procedure (4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments) [See TOPICS 21-28 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit


Should New York City Remove Metal Detectors from Its Schools? [EdLawProfs Blog, 11/23/15]: The title of this post poses what might sound like an odd question, but a debate over whether to remove  metal detectors from New York City's schools is gaining in prominence for two reasons.  First, the last shooting in a New York City school was in 1992.  Second, metal detectors are not uniform practice in the district. 

Appeals Court Rejects Injunction Requiring Training on School Searches [School Law Blog, 11/22/15]: A federal appeals court has thrown out a trial judge's injunction requiring a Tennessee school district to better train its school nurses to avoid unconstitutional searches and seizures of students. The ruling stemmed from a 2009 incident in which a school nurse in the Nashville-Davidson County school system conducted a visual inspection of a 6-year-old girl's genital area because the student had complained of itching and discomfort.
Read the 6th Circuit opinion in Hearring v. Sulwowski by going to:

Our Prisons in Black and White [The Marshall Project, 11/18/15]: The race gap for adults is shrinking. Why is it widening for juveniles?

Legal Privacy Debated for Connecticut Milnenials [CNS, 11/23/15]: Conn. Gov. Dannel Malloy wants to raise the age for juvenile offenders to 20, but the more controversial aspect of his plan would let "low-risk" young adults between the ages of 21 to 25 to have their cases heard confidentially.


V. 1st Amendment (Speech, Religion, Press and Assembly) [See TOPICS 29-33 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

Washington Post reporter sentenced in secret – an Iranian shame [Newseum, 11/23/15]: A government official has announced that The Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian – already unjustly jailed for some 16 months – has now been sentenced to prison following his conviction last month on espionage and other charges.  

New tool for monitoring social media censorship [FAC, 11/231915]: OnlineCensorship.org is providing a way to discover content censored around the world on the social media. The organization will compile data on censorship to find out how it plays out online.

Victory for online speech: California approves online libel protections [FAC / RCFP, 11/1915]: A California law has extended libel protections to online publications. An appeals court decided in 2014 that rules on retraction of alleged libel did not apply to online publications since a 1931 law defined newspapers as publications printed on cheap paper.   
The case is Thieriot v. Wrapnews and can be found at:

VI. 14th Amendment, Discrimination, Privacy, Working, Citizenship & Immigration [See TOPICS 34-41 in the 5th edition of Constitutional Law] Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this unit:

Venue owners appeal fine for denying lesbian couple wedding [AP, 11/23/15]: Owners of a wedding venue who were fined $13,000 for violating the state's anti-discrimination law argued Monday that they should be legally allowed to follow their Christian faith.

The Return of Korematsu [The Atlantic, 11/19/15]: Seventy years after the mass internment of Japanese Americans was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, the ugly ideas at the core of its decision are resurfacing.

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