Case Study : Pierce V. Society Of Sisters

Charles Sumner fought the country’s first school integration case, “Sarah C. Roberts v. The City of Boston” in 1849. The court ruled that school segregation was neither irrational nor unlawful. The Massachusetts legislature later passed law prohibiting school segregation, in 1855.

In summarizing the salient points of the Supreme Court case Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, it had to do with the respondent’s father who sued candidates, including a school region, affirming that the school locale's approach requiring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance at his little girl's school damaged the First Amendment. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the father had standing and decided for the father. Certiorari was conceded to audit the standing and First Amendment issues.

The Supreme Court ruled that education was extremely important and "the very foundation of good citizenship" 1. In addition, the Supreme Court said segregation implied inferiority in a child and made them not want to try as they wouldn't be recognized if they did 1. The court supported good education as being necessary to succeed in life. They ruled access to a good education was “a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.”

Decision: The court ruled against the school district and upheld the establishment clause of the first

On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas . State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. The 14th Amendment states; “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to

In 1982, the United States Supreme Court reviewed a case regarding the education of undocumented Mexican children in Texas (Plyler v. Doe, 1982). Arguments stated that when the school district denied education to these children, the school district violated the children's right under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, in 1975, Texas passed a law that stated that school districts have the legal right to withhold state funds for educating unauthorized immigrants. This class action suit was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court after the lower courts upheld the school district's decision.

Susan, a young teenager, wanted to attend a better equipped school closer to her family home. This wish, combined with her father’s civil rights involvement, contributed to her family’s decision to file a court case to gain access to an all white school to which she had originally been denied access. The Iowa Supreme Court’s decision regarding Clark versus Board of Directors was the first successful school desegregation case in the United States.

v. Chicago. In short, state entities ought to be held to the same legal standard in which they were when schools were

Schempp 374 US 203 (1963), 2015). The Schempp family were Unitarians, so they objected to some ideas in the Bible. They had the option to excuse their children from the Bible reading, but then their children would have missed out on some of the morning announcements. (Supreme Court Cases, 2015) So as to not hinder their children?s learning opportunities, the Schempp family brought their issue to the State appeals court. Later, the State appeals court took the side of the Schempp family and stated the Abington School District violated the Establishment Clause, which is a clause in the First Amendment that prohibits the government from establishing a religion. (Supreme Court Cases, 2015) When the issue was brought to the Supreme Court in 1963, the question was simple, did the Pennsylvania law and Abington 's policy violate the religious freedom of their students that is protected by the 1st and 14th Amendments (Chicago-Kent College of Law, 2015)?

During the 1970s the court reviewed the constitutionality of compelled exemptions for religiously motivated conduct (1673). In Wisconsin v. Yoder the Court held that there was an important state interest in universal education but the law to compel students to go to school infringed on the free exercised rights. Chief Justice Burger, “lauded the virtues of the Amish and their social practices. In Employment Division v. Smith, the Court held that the use of peyote for religious purposes does not protect the persons from a denial of unemployment benefits. Justice Scalia stated, “We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate” (1676).

This case has also set the groundwork for forthcoming cases such as Bethel School District v. Fraser where the courts decision was based on this landmark case. It was stated that basically “students are not granted the same coextensive rights as adults in other settings outside of school”. Institutions of education still apply the decisions made in New Jersey v. T.L.O. to today’s school settings to maintain order and accountability of student well

unable to support another school only for African- Americans. The court decided that: " the interest

Starting in the 1960s as the turmoil surrounding Brown V. Board of education died down, parents and taxpayers began to bring lawsuits against state funding systems arguing that these systems violated either state or federal constitutions (Augenblick, Myers & Anderson, 1997). Thus far, federal claims have all failed. In 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the San Antonio independent School

Reasoning: Court concluded that parents have a right to withdraw their child from a public school providing an inappropriate education under the meaning of IDEA and enroll them in a private school, as long as the private school provides an "appropriate" education. The Court further held that the specific requirements of the Act need not be met when a student is placed in a private school by his or her parents because the IDEA requirements were not intended to apply to parental placements.

Beginning in the mid-1960, Roman Catholic schools began to meet severe financial problems; many parish schools closed and the Catholic school population dropped sharply. Their loss of students and their financial difficulties forced them to seek aid from public sources, most often in the form of tax subsidies or credits for the parents of the parochial school children (Parochial school, 2). Parochial schools, independently established, mainly receive money from tuition rates; therefore, no financial help from the federal, state, or local government were available. According to Robert Drinan, during the middle and late nineteenth century, almost every state in the union adopted a basic legal and educational principle that tax-support is given only to public schools where no sectarian religion would be taught (State, 1). Though restricted, funding was eventually granted for all nonpublic schools. According to an article in U.S. Newswire, United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Mitchell v. Helms, where the Court ruled that federal fund used to lend computers, instructional equipment, and library books to parochial and private schools are constitutional (Reform,