key laws and historical events

The suit alleged that low-income and Black students were denied equal educational opportunity as a result of the district’s discriminatory practices. Included among the challenged practices was the institution of a rigid system that assigned students to three or four homogeneous ability groups, or tracks.

Once assigned, students had virtually no opportunity to switch tracks. Students in the lowest tracks received a substantially different and lesser education geared toward attaining lower-paying, blue-collar jobs, while honors track students prepared for college. Low-income and Black students were disproportionately represented in the lowest track. Students were tracked on the basis of the results of a single measure: a standardized aptitude test administered in early elementary school.

Circuit Judge Skelly Wright found that the tests were not actually measuring ability because they were biased in such a way that poor, Black children would inevitably earn lower scores and, as a result, lower track placements. Thus, children were being assigned to tracks based not on ability, but on status. Wright concluded that this was discriminatory under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, because the lower-track classes provided less educational opportunity.

In this case, the use of tests to place students was again challenged. Diana, a Spanish-speaking student in Monterey County, California, had been placed in a class for mildly mentally retarded students because she had scored low on an IQ test given to her in English. The court ruled that Spanish-speaking children should be retested in their native language to avoid errors in placement.

Amy Rowley was a student at the Furnace Woods Elementary who was deaf and expected to read lips in the classroom. Amy’s parents chose for her to attend the local elementary school. The school denied some requests from Amys family for her special needs.

Amy Rowley was a student at the Furnace Woods Elementary who was deaf and expected to read lips in the classroom. Amy’s parents chose for her to attend the local elementary school. The school denied some requests from Amys family for her special needs. Students are to be in an environment that is as unrestricted as possible, meaning many of these students should be in classrooms with other children, and each student with a disability should be given an individual education plan, or IEP. The reason the Rowleys lost their case was because the Court believed that Amy was given the best possible classroom experience and did not require an interpreter to do so.

While it is typically beneficial for students to spend some portion of their day with their peers without disabilities, it is the law that every student be provided with a free and appropriate public education (FAPE), and when students are not thriving, and certainly when they are not able to participate or master any skills taught in the general education classroom, it is necessary to look into a more restrictive environment where learning can be centered around their diverse and individual needs.

In Daniel R.R. v. State Board of Education, a six-year-old child, Daniel, who had Down Syndrome, was placed in a half-day special education class with the other half spent in a tradition Pre-Kindergarten program at the request of his parents. After a period of time, it was determined that Daniel was not benefiting from the placement in the traditional Pre-Kindergarten class. He was then placed in the Early Childhood Education class with time granted to spent with peers without disabilities during lunch and recess.

His parents brought the case to both the district court and the circuit court. Both the district and the circuit court upheld the school’s decision to move Daniel to an all-day early childhood special education class. The circuit court stated that the imprecise nature of the IDEA mandates was deliberate and that Congress had purposely chosen to leave the selection of educational policy and methods in the hands of individual school officials. The court argued that Congress was aware when they were creating the IDEA policies that there was tension between what is considered an appropriate education and the mainstreaming provisions of IDEA.

In Daniel R.R. v. State Board of Education, it was determined that the appropriate placement and least restrictive environment for Daniel was not the general education classroom. This case was a landmark case in interpreting the language behind IDEA’s predecessor, EHA.

The ADA protects the civil rights of people with disabilities in all aspects of employment, in accessing public services such as transportation, and guaranteeing access to public accommodations such as restaurants, stores, hotels and other types of buildings to which the public has access.

Raphael Oberti was a child with down syndrome that is from the Clementon School District in New Jersey. The school district did not have the funds for the special needs Raphael would need, they promised to find another school district for the down syndrome child but did not put any efforts in.

Because the school district had not provided evidence that Raphael should be excluded from general education classes, the Court concluded that IDEA had been violated by the district. It was determined that Raphael should be allowed to participate in general education classes with the help of a teacher with training to meet his needs.

In 2007, IDEA received significant amendments. The definition of disabled children expanded to include developmentally delayed children between three and nine years of age. It also required parents to attempt to resolve disputes with schools and Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) through mediation, and provided a process for doing so. The amendments authorized additional grants for technology, disabled infants and toddlers, parent training, and professional development.

Garret was a quadriplegic and required many different medical needs throughout any given day, including a catheter and continued observation of his respiratory functions. The upper court upheld the decision of the lower court because Garret’s specific needs did not require a medical professional, just an aid. It was eventually ruled that a school district is required to fund any services that guarantee that disabled students are not segregated from other students because of their health.

NCLB reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and included provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education reform and required states to develop assessments in basic skills. To receive federal school funding, states had to give these assessments to all students at select grade levels. The act did not assert a national achievement standard – each state developed its own standards.

The law is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Under the law, states are required to test students in reading and math in grades 3–8 and once in high school. All students are expected to meet or exceed state standards in reading and math by 2014.

The major focus of No Child Left Behind is to close student achievement gaps by providing all children with a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education. The U.S. Department of Education emphasizes four pillars within the bill:

• Accountability: to ensure those students who are disadvantaged, achieve academic proficiency.
• Flexibility: Allows school districts flexibility in how they use federal education funds to improve student achievement.
• Research-based education: Emphasizes educational programs and practices that have been proven effective through scientific research.
• Parent options: Increases the choices available to the parents of students attending Title I schools.

NCLB requires each state to establish state academic standards and a state testing system that meet federal requirements. This accountability requirement is called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

The law also appropriated funds to states to improve the education of limited English proficient students by assisting children to learn English and meet challenging state academic content and student academic achievement standards. Legislation for limited English proficient students is found under Title III of NCLB.

IDEA (2004) included…

Changes to >what must be included in the IEP (Individualized Education Plan) and the process surrounding an IEP...

• Content of the IEP -These must include annual goals, short term objectives, educational progress, special education and related services, accommodations and alternative assessments, and transitions.
• IEP meeting attendance - A member of the IEP team may be excused if the team member's service will not be discussed at the meeting. This must be approved by the school and the parents.

Changes to Due Process including..

• a Procedural Safeguards Notice only needs to be distributed once per year
• Parents have two years to exercise due process rights
• Changes to the due process complaint notice procedure (parents must go through a mandatory resolution session before due process)

Changes to Student Discipline including...

• new authority for school staff to determine discipline on a case by case basis
• burden of proof has been shifted to the parents and must prove that the behavior was "caused by or had direct and substantial relationship to the child's disability", or was a "direct result of the LEA's failure to implement the IEP."
• adds a new standard for specific disabilities

For a brief introduction, click here for a short video overview. For more specific information...

English-Language Learners

Accountability for English-language learners moves from Title III (the English-language acquisition section of the ESEA) to Title I (where everyone else’s accountability is). The idea is to make accountability for those students a priority.

States can include English-language learners’ test scores after they have been in the country a year, as under current law.

During that first year, those students’ test scores won’t count toward a school’s rating, but ELLs will need to take both of the assessments, and have the results publicly reported. In the second year, the state has to incorporate ELLs’ results for both reading and math, using some measure of growth. And in their third year in the country, the proficiency scores of newly arrived ELLs will be treated just like any other students’.

Students in Special Education

Only 1 percent of students overall can be given alternative tests. (That’s about 10 percent of students in special education.)

Accountability Goals

States can pick their own goals, both a big long-term goal, and smaller, interim goals. These goals must address: proficiency on tests, English-language proficiency, and graduation rates. Goals have to set an expectation that all groups that are furthest behind close gaps in achievement and graduation rates.

Accountability Systems

States need to incorporate at least four indicators into their accountability systems. The menu includes three academic indicators: proficiency on state tests, English-language proficiency, plus some other academic factor that can be broken out by subgroup, which could be growth on state tests.

States are required to add at least one additional indicator of a very different kind. Possibilities include: student engagement, educator engagement, access to and completion of advanced coursework, postsecondary readiness, school climate/safety, or whatever else the state thinks makes sense.

States have to figure in participation rates on state tests. (Schools with less than 95 percent participation are supposed to have that included, somehow.) But participation rate is a stand-alone factor, not a separate indicator on its own.

In addition, High schools will also be judged based on graduation rates, which could take the place of a second academic indicator.

Weighing of Indicators

It will be up to the states to decide how much the individual indicators will count, although the academic factors (tests, graduation rates, etc.) will have to count "much" more as a group than the indicators that get at students’ opportunity to learn and post-secondary readiness.

Low-Performing Schools

States have to identify and intervene in the bottom 5 percent of performers. These schools have to be identified at least once every three years. States have to identify and intervene in high schools where the graduation rate is 67 percent or less. States, with districts, have to identify schools where subgroups of students are struggling.

School Interventions

For the bottom 5 percent of schools and for high schools with high dropout rates:

Districts will work with teachers and school staff to come up with an evidence-based plan. States will monitor the turnaround effort. If schools continue to founder, after no more than four years the state will be required to step in with its own plan. A state could take over the school if it wanted, or fire the principal, or turn the school into a charter.

Districts could also allow for public school choice out of seriously low-performing schools, but they have to give priority to the students who need it most.

For schools where subgroup students are struggling:

Schools have to come up with an evidence-based plan to help the particular group of students who are falling behind, such as minority students or those in special education.

Districts must monitor these plans. If the school continues to fall short, the district would step in, though there’s no specified timeline.

Importantly, there’s also a provision calling for states and districts to come up with a “comprehensive improvement plan” in schools where subgroups are chronically underperforming, despite local interventions.

Testing

States still have to test students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, and break out the data for whole schools, plus different “subgroups” of students (English-learners, students in special education, racial minorities, those in poverty). ESSA maintains the federal requirement for 95 percent participation in tests.

Standards

States are required to adopt “challenging” academic standards. That could be the Common Core State Standards, but doesn’t have to be. The U.S. Secretary of Education is expressly prohibited from forcing or even encouraging states to pick a particular set of standards (including the common core).

Teachers

States will no longer have to do teacher evaluation through student outcomes, as they did under NCLB waivers. The NCLB law’s “highly qualified teacher” requirement is officially a thing of the past.

The former Teacher Incentive Fund—now called the Teacher and School Leader Innovation Program—will provide grants to districts that want to try out performance pay and other teacher-quality improvement measures. ESSA also includes resources for helping train teachers on literacy and STEM.

In 1963, immigration from Cuba was causing a dramatic demographic shift in Miami. As a result, Florida instituted conversational Spanish instruction before adding dual language instruction to its curriculum for both English and Spanish speakers.

It was a national first.

Although some schools had offered similar programs for those who spoke languages such as German and Italian. Coral Way became known as the nation's first public school with a bilingual and bicultural education program for both English and Spanish speakers.

The Bilingual Education Act, Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1968) established federal policy for bilingual education for economically disadvantaged language minority students, allocates funds for innovative programs to help rectify the educational disadvantages of non-English speaking students.

This desegregation case centered on the issue of discrimination and whether the San Felipe and Del Rio school districts were providing Mexican American students an equal educational opportunity. On August 6, 1971, Judge William Wayne Justice ordered the consolidation of the two districts. As a result of the lawsuit, the federal court came down with a court order that sought to eliminate discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in Texas public and charter schools.

This case claimed ‘de facto’ segregation had affected a substantial part of the school system and therefore was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause. The entire district in Denver, Colorado must be desegregated. In this case black and Hispanic parents filed suit against all Denver schools due to racial segregation. The court ruled in favor of Keyes recognizing the right that Hispanic children had to go to desegregated schools and not be racially isolated. The ruling recognizes Latinos’ being placed at a disadvantage due to systemic educational inequities.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Spanish surnamed students' achievement levels were below those of their Anglo counterparts. The court ordered Portales Municipal Schools to implement a bilingual/bicultural curriculum, revise procedures for assessing achievement, and hire bilingual school personnel.

This ruling ensures that districts will provide students with the same curriculum via initiatives such as bilingual programs and ESL classes. It also increased district accountability—schools with high numbers of English language learners must submit reports to the federal government to show they’re providing adequate support for these students.

This suit by Chinese parents in San Francisco leads to the ruling that identical education does not constitute equal education under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. School districts must take affirmative steps to overcome educational barriers faced by non-English speakers. This ruling established that the Office for Civil Rights, under the former Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, has the authority to establish regulations for Title VI enforcement.

This district court decision stated that the bilingual program of the Brentwood School District unnecessarily segregated LEP students from other students during art and physical education, and had not established adequate exit criteria to move students into the mainstream.

The Federal District Court rejected the Brentwood School District's proposed bilingual program on the grounds that it would violate "Lau Guidelines" by unnecessarily segregating Spanish-speaking students from their English-speaking peers.

TThe Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York found that the school District's transitional bilingual program was basically a course in English and did not meet the needs of students whose first language was Spanish.

This case was filed against the Raymondville Independent School District (RISD) in Texas by Roy Castañeda, the father of two Mexican-American children. Mr. Castañeda claimed that the RISD was discriminating against his children because of their ethnicity. He argued that the classroom his children were being taught in was segregated, using a grouping system for classrooms based on criteria that were both ethnically and racially discriminating.

Mr. Castañeda also claimed the Raymondville Independent School District failed to establish sufficient bilingual education programs, which would have aided his children in overcoming the language barriers that prevented them from participating equally in the classroom.

In 1981 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the Castañedas, and as a result, the court decision established a three-part assessment for determining how bilingual education programs would be held responsible for meeting the requirements of the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974. The criteria are listed below:

• The bilingual education program must be “based on sound educational theory.”
• The program must be “implemented effectively with resources for personnel, instructional materials, and space.”
• After a trial period, the program must be proven effective in overcoming language barriers/handicaps.

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that State Education Agencies are required under EEOA to ensure that language minority student's educational needs are met. In this case, ELL students were not given an equal educational opportunity in their schools. The Court determined that the school receives federal funding to help in the placement and training of ELL students and it is the school district’s obligation to properly place and teach those students.

NCLB reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and included provisions applying to disadvantaged students. It supported standards-based education reform and required states to develop assessments in basic skills. To receive federal school funding, states had to give these assessments to all students at select grade levels. The act did not assert a national achievement standard – each state developed its own standards.

The law is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Under the law, states are required to test students in reading and math in grades 3–8 and once in high school. All students are expected to meet or exceed state standards in reading and math by 2014.

The major focus of No Child Left Behind is to close student achievement gaps by providing all children with a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education. The U.S. Department of Education emphasizes four pillars within the bill:

• Accountability: to ensure those students who are disadvantaged, achieve academic proficiency.
• Flexibility: Allows school districts flexibility in how they use federal education funds to improve student achievement.
• Research-based education: Emphasizes educational programs and practices that have been proven effective through scientific research.
• Parent options: Increases the choices available to the parents of students attending Title I schools.

NCLB requires each state to establish state academic standards and a state testing system that meet federal requirements. This accountability requirement is called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

The law also appropriated funds to states to improve the education of limited English proficient students by assisting children to learn English and meet challenging state academic content and student academic achievement standards. Legislation for limited English proficient students is found under Title III of NCLB.

The court determined that the state should focus on the outcomes of the students, instead of on spending. This case was brought to the Court because ELL students believed that Nogales Unified School district had not taught the students English, which was detracting from their ability to succeed. Eight years after the case was originally brought forward, the Court determined that Arizona had violated the Equal Education Opportunity Act by not putting enough funding into the ELL program.

For a brief introduction, click here for a short video overview. For more specific information...

English-Language Learners

Accountability for English-language learners moves from Title III (the English-language acquisition section of the ESEA) to Title I (where everyone else’s accountability is). The idea is to make accountability for those students a priority.

States can include English-language learners’ test scores after they have been in the country a year, as under current law.

During that first year, those students’ test scores won’t count toward a school’s rating, but ELLs will need to take both of the assessments, and have the results publicly reported. In the second year, the state has to incorporate ELLs’ results for both reading and math, using some measure of growth. And in their third year in the country, the proficiency scores of newly arrived ELLs will be treated just like any other students’.

Students in Special Education

Only 1 percent of students overall can be given alternative tests. (That’s about 10 percent of students in special education.)

Accountability Goals

States can pick their own goals, both a big long-term goal, and smaller, interim goals. These goals must address: proficiency on tests, English-language proficiency, and graduation rates. Goals have to set an expectation that all groups that are furthest behind close gaps in achievement and graduation rates.

Accountability Systems

States need to incorporate at least four indicators into their accountability systems. The menu includes three academic indicators: proficiency on state tests, English-language proficiency, plus some other academic factor that can be broken out by subgroup, which could be growth on state tests.

States are required to add at least one additional indicator of a very different kind. Possibilities include: student engagement, educator engagement, access to and completion of advanced coursework, postsecondary readiness, school climate/safety, or whatever else the state thinks makes sense.

States have to figure in participation rates on state tests. (Schools with less than 95 percent participation are supposed to have that included, somehow.) But participation rate is a stand-alone factor, not a separate indicator on its own.

In addition, High schools will also be judged based on graduation rates, which could take the place of a second academic indicator.

Weighing of Indicators

It will be up to the states to decide how much the individual indicators will count, although the academic factors (tests, graduation rates, etc.) will have to count "much" more as a group than the indicators that get at students’ opportunity to learn and post-secondary readiness.

Low-Performing Schools

States have to identify and intervene in the bottom 5 percent of performers. These schools have to be identified at least once every three years. States have to identify and intervene in high schools where the graduation rate is 67 percent or less. States, with districts, have to identify schools where subgroups of students are struggling.

School Interventions

For the bottom 5 percent of schools and for high schools with high dropout rates:

Districts will work with teachers and school staff to come up with an evidence-based plan. States will monitor the turnaround effort. If schools continue to founder, after no more than four years the state will be required to step in with its own plan. A state could take over the school if it wanted, or fire the principal, or turn the school into a charter.

Districts could also allow for public school choice out of seriously low-performing schools, but they have to give priority to the students who need it most.

For schools where subgroup students are struggling:

Schools have to come up with an evidence-based plan to help the particular group of students who are falling behind, such as minority students or those in special education.

Districts must monitor these plans. If the school continues to fall short, the district would step in, though there’s no specified timeline.

Importantly, there’s also a provision calling for states and districts to come up with a “comprehensive improvement plan” in schools where subgroups are chronically underperforming, despite local interventions.

Testing

States still have to test students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, and break out the data for whole schools, plus different “subgroups” of students (English-learners, students in special education, racial minorities, those in poverty). ESSA maintains the federal requirement for 95 percent participation in tests.

Standards

States are required to adopt “challenging” academic standards. That could be the Common Core State Standards, but doesn’t have to be. The U.S. Secretary of Education is expressly prohibited from forcing or even encouraging states to pick a particular set of standards (including the common core).

Teachers

States will no longer have to do teacher evaluation through student outcomes, as they did under NCLB waivers. The NCLB law’s “highly qualified teacher” requirement is officially a thing of the past.

The former Teacher Incentive Fund—now called the Teacher and School Leader Innovation Program—will provide grants to districts that want to try out performance pay and other teacher-quality improvement measures. ESSA also includes resources for helping train teachers on literacy and STEM.

In Engel v. Vitale (1962), The Court struck down a New York State rule that allowed public schools to hold a short, nondenominational prayer at the beginning of the school day.

The Court decided that these prayers amounted to an “official stamp of approval” upon one particular kind of prayer and religious service, and said that, since teachers are agents of the federal government, the scheme violated the Establishment Clause.

The reasoning in Engel was also applied in Schempp, in which the Court struck down a Pennsylvania policy that required all students to read 10 Bible verses and say the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of each day. While a student could get an exemption with a parent’s note, the Warren Court decided that this still amounted to an unconstitutional government endorsement of a particular religious tradition.

At the height of the Vietnam War, students in the Des Moines Independent Community School District in Iowa wore black armbands to school as an expression of their dissatisfaction with U.S. foreign policy. The district passed a rule prohibiting the armbands as part of a larger dress code, and students challenged the ban as a violation of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. The Court agreed with the students and struck down the ban, saying that the school has to prove that the conduct or speech “materially and substantially interferes” with school operations in order to justify the ban.

Wisconsin mandated that all children attend public school until age 16, but Jonas Yoder, a devoutly religious Amish man, refused to send his children to school past eighth grade. He argued that his children didn’t need to be in school that long to lead a fulfilling Amish life of farming and agricultural work, and that keeping his children in school for such a length of time would corrupt their faith. The Court unanimously agreed, saying that the values of public school were in “sharp conflict with the fundamental mode of life mandated by the Amish religion.” It carved out an exception for Yoder and others similarly situated. One of several public school cases of its kind during the time period, Wisconsin v. Yoder that focussed on the Free Exercise Clause of religion.

A court decision was made in behalf of black children in California who had been placed and maintained in special classes for the "educable mentally retarded" ("E.M.R."). The placement process for those classes, particularly the use of standardized individual intelligence ("I.Q.") tests that (at the time) were racially biased, resulted in misplacement of black children in special classes. Black children represented only 10 percent of the general student population in California at the time, but provided some 25 percent of the population enrolled in E.M.R. classes.

Due to schools being funded partially by property taxes, a claim was made that students in poorer communities were being underserved when compared with students in wealthier districts.

The Supreme Court of the United States determined that San Antonio Independent School District's financing system (which was based on local property taxes) was not an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause.

Rodriguez had argued that the fundamental right to education should be applied to the States, through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court found that there was no such fundamental right and that the unequal school financing system was not subject to strict scrutiny.

The Fraser case brought up many more instances in which students used obscene or vulgar language in speeches, debates, and etc. The Fraser case showed that schools are allowed to put limitations on “styles of expression that are sexually vulgar” while remaining in the bounds of the First Amendment.

The Court determined that creationism specifically violated the First Amendment Establishment Clause because it can be linked to particular religious beliefs. The Court also determined that teaching many different scientific theories can be done in a valid and Constitutional way, as long as it is done to further students’ scientific knowledge - not religious knowledge.

Bridget Mergens was a senior at Westside High School in Omaha, Nebraska. She asked her homeroom teacher, who was also the school's principal, for permission to start an after-school Christian club. Westside High already had about 30 clubs, including a chess club and a scuba-diving club. The principal denied Bridget's request, telling her that a religious club would be illegal in a public school.

The year before, in 1984, Congress had addressed this issue in the Equal Access Act, which required public schools to allow religious and political clubs if they let students form other kinds of student-interest clubs. When Bridget challenged the principal's decision, her lawsuit became the Supreme Court's test case for deciding whether the Equal Access Act was constitutional under what is known as the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Bridget. Allowing students to meet on campus to discuss religion after school did not amount to state sponsorship of religion, the Court said: "We think that secondary-school students are mature enough and are likely to understand that a school does not endorse or support student speech that it merely permits."

In other words...if a public school allows only clubs tied to the school curriculum—a French club related to French classes, for instance—it can exclude clubs that don't connect to its educational mission. But once a school allows student-interest clubs—such as a scuba-diving club, environmental club, or jazz club—it cannot exclude religious clubs, political clubs, gay-lesbian clubs, or other groups.

If the club is religious in nature, however, the school must refrain from active involvement or sponsorship, so that it doesn't run afoul of the Establishment Clause, the Court said.

In an important case dealing with sex-based discrimination, the Court rejected the creation of all-women’s military school, as a remedy and comparable program to the Virginia Military Institute’s (VMI) male-only admission policy. Because VMI failed to demonstrate that single-sex education enhances educational diversity, and failed to show that the women’s program would offer the same benefits as the male academy, the male-only admission policy violated the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 1997, Barbara Grutter, a white Michigan resident, was denied admission to the University of Michigan Law School. Grutter, who had a 3.8 undergraduate grade point average and good standardized test scores, sued the university over the law school's affirmative action policy, which considered race as a factor in admissions. Michigan and many other universities use affirmative action to increase the number of minority students admitted. Grutter claimed that Michigan admitted less-qualified minority applicants in violation of federal civil rights laws and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees citizens "equal protection" under the law.

The Supreme Court upheld the use of affirmative action in higher education. "Student-body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions," the Court said. But the Court emphasized that the University of Michigan's policy was acceptable because the school conducted a thorough review of each applicant's qualifications and did not use a racial quota system—meaning it did not set aside a specific number of offers for minority applicants.

Affirmative action, which has its origins in a 1961 executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy, continues to be a contentious issue, with critics charging that it amounts to reverse discrimination. Since 1996, voters in three states—California, Washington, and, most recently, Michigan—have approved laws banning affirmative action in public education, in state government hiring, and the awarding of state contracts.

Teachers decided that students should be made aware of the “holes” in Darwin’s theories. The students were taught “intelligent design,” which explained life and its origins in different ways than Darwin did. Intelligent design was found to be a type of “creationism,” making it unconstitutional to teach in American public schools.

The court ruled that teaching intelligent design in public school biology classes violates the Establishment Clause because intelligent design is not science, and it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents."

On May 13, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Education (DOE) issued joint guidance to educational institutions on the scope of Title IX, in the form of a Dear Colleague letter. The guidance formalized the administration's view that Title IX law prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

In practical terms, the administration instructed schools that Title IX's prohibition on discrimination means that schools must:

• provide an environment free of harassment,
• honor transgender students' preferred names and pronouns,
• permit all students to participate in sex-segregated activities and use sex-segregated facilities (including bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight accommodations) in accordance with their gender identity, and
• protect transgender students' privacy by avoiding non-consensual disclosure of their gender status.

The guidance permitted a limited exception for athletics, where accommodating transgender students would impair "the competitive fairness or physical safety of the sport".