Equality of Opportunity and the Schoolhouse Gate

54 Pages Posted: 17 Jun 2019 Last revised: 20 Aug 2019

See all articles by Michelle Adams

Michelle Adams

University of Michigan Law School

Derek W. Black

University of South Carolina - School of Law

Date Written: June 12, 2019

Abstract

Public schools have generated some of the most far reaching cases to come before the Supreme Court. They have involved nearly every major civil right and liberty found in the Bill of Rights. The cases are often reflections of larger societal ills and anxieties, from segregation and immigration to religion and civil discourse over war. In that respect, they go to the core of the nation’s values. Yet, constitutional law scholars have largely ignored education law as a distinct area of study and importance.

Justin Driver’s book cures that shortcoming, offering a three dimensional view of how the Court’s education law jurisprudence as evolved over the past century. The Court, once loath to intervene in school affairs, increasingly recognized that students’ constitutional rights do not end at the schoolhouse gate. But that extension has not without been without limitations, pause or controversy. Driver vividly narrates both the Court’s internal conversations and those occurring in broader society. Most importantly, Driver helps the reader see how the Court’s decisions were not preordained, could have gone a number of different ways, and heavily influenced the history that followed.

The Book Review, however, argues that no account of the Court’s education precedent is complete without a detailed examination of how the Court’s decisions have affected equal opportunity. The attempt to ensure equal educational opportunity is ultimately the tie that binds so much of the Court’s precedent. Unfortunately, the Court’s doctrine on this score has not been one of consistent expansion. In fact, too often the Court has limited students’ rights and, thus, the educational opportunities they receive. This failure is clearest in two areas: those cases implicating a constitutional right to education and school desegregation.

Keywords: right to education, equal opportunity, constitutional rights, Supreme Court, desegregation, fundamental rights, students, civil rights

Suggested Citation

Adams, Michelle and Black, Derek W., Equality of Opportunity and the Schoolhouse Gate (June 12, 2019). Yale Law Journal, Vol. 128, No. 2302, 2019, Cardozo Legal Studies Research Paper No. 584, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3403094

Michelle Adams

University of Michigan Law School ( email )

701 S. South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215
United States
734 647-3589 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://https://michigan.law.umich.edu/faculty-and-scholarship/our-faculty/michelle-adams

Derek W. Black (Contact Author)

University of South Carolina - School of Law ( email )

1525 Senate Street
Columbia, SC 29208
United States

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