This book examines the development of elementary and secondary students’ constitutional rights between 1964 and 1984 and its relationship to efforts to secure racial justice at school during the desegregation era. The first three chapters cover case studies that provide the local context for students’ rights litigation that originated in Mississippi; Denver, Colorado; and Columbus, Ohio. Each case study focuses on a particular area of students’ rights, such as free speech, equal protection, and due process, and provides an examination of how student protestrelated to civil rights and Chicano M ... More

This book examines the development of elementary and secondary students’ constitutional rights between 1964 and 1984 and its relationship to efforts to secure racial justice at school during the desegregation era. The first three chapters cover case studies that provide the local context for students’ rights litigation that originated in Mississippi; Denver, Colorado; and Columbus, Ohio. Each case study focuses on a particular area of students’ rights, such as free speech, equal protection, and due process, and provides an examination of how student protestrelated to civil rights and Chicano Movement activism contributed to litigation. The final two chapters provide a national view of the effects that these cases had on students’ rights law more generally, including the rights related to bilingual education, equal educational opportunities, and access to education for students with disabilities. The book also explores students’ rights in relation to school discipline, including the areas of corporal punishment, privacy, and suspensions and expulsions. The book argues that, as the courts developed the principles that determine when and why students gain rights protections, they did so in ways that undermined the initial goals of the black and Chicano student activists who set these lawsuits into motion.This book therefore offers a critical approach to these developments in American constitutional law and concludes by pointing to the ways in which the law contributes to persistent racial inequities in education.