John Moore Jr.: Moore v City of East Cleveland and Children's Constitutional Arguments

Abstract

At the heart of Moore v City of East Cleveland is 7 year old John Moore Jr. How would we tell the story of Moore from his perspective, and how might the case have been constructed if his rights and constitutional harms were asserted? The ordinary act of registering John for school was the apparent trigger for efforts to exclude him from school, by mandating his removal from his grandmother’s house, after an earlier effort to deny his entry into school had failed. In this essay I first tell the story of the case from John’s perspective and then construct constitutional claims on his behalf.

Keywords: Moore v. City of East Cleveland, children's rights, equality