Education

Friday Roundup: Equal Access Act, Desegregation, and Adequacy

By Mark Walsh — April 25, 2008 1 min read
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Today we deal with Truth, justice, and the Connecticut way:

Equal Access Act: A federal appeals court ruled today that a Washington state school district did not violate the federal Equal Access Act or the First Amendment by denying recognition to a student Bible club because the club’s charter conflicted with the district’s non-discrimination policy.
However, because there were questions about whether the district violated the group’s rights by refusing to exempt it from the policy based either on its religion or the content of its speech, the court reversed a summary judgment order in favor of the school district and ordered further proceedings.
The ruling by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, in Truth v. Kent School District is here.
The case involves a proposed student Bible group called Truth at Kentridge High School, and the core controversy is over the club’s interest in limiting full voting membership in the club to students who pledge to abide “in good faith with Christian character, Christian speech, Christian behavior and Christian conduct as generally described in the Bible.”

Unitary Status in Tucson: “A federal judge essentially has released the Tucson Unified School District from a 30-year-old desegregation order,” the Associated Press reports here. The opinion by U.S. District Judge David C. Bury is here.
The Tucson Citizen reports here that “much of the desegregation order, however, lost its bite in August, when Bury ruled TUSD’s student assignment policy unconstitutional.”
The judge’s August order is here.

Connecticut School Funding: The Connecticut Supreme Court this week considered a lawsuit challenging the way the state funds public education. The Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding has a Web page devoted to its case, which is seeking to overturn a lower-court ruling that the state constitution does not mandate a minimum standard of quality for public education.
The Hartford Courant reports here.
Yale Law School has this press release about how two students in its Education Adequacy Clinic got to argue the case before the state high court justices.

A version of this news article first appeared in The School Law Blog.