The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is reconsidering its prior decisions that had established a legal right for transgender students to access bathrooms consistent with their gender identity. The reconsideration is based on...more
Thanks to a recent legislative change, the campaign season for those wishing to run for the school board now begins about a month earlier. Historically, the window set forth in the Election Code for filing nominating...more
In recent months, OCR has reached resolution agreements with a school district and two universities after investigating complaints of discrimination and harassment based on ancestry or ethnicity, including allegations...more
7/12/2024
/ Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Colleges ,
Compliance ,
Discrimination ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employees ,
Ethnicity ,
Harassment ,
Hostile Environment ,
OCR ,
Race Discrimination ,
School Districts ,
Students ,
Title VI ,
Universities
Over the past year and a half, school districts have been inundated with high numbers of due process complaints and mediation requests. Looking back, it appears that as the wave of COVID-19 cases finally began to slow, the...more
On Monday June 27, the Supreme Court issued their ruling in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. (We previously reported on this case.) In a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative majority...more
6/29/2022
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Coaches ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Establishment Clause ,
First Amendment ,
Free Exercise Clause ,
Free Speech ,
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District ,
Prayer ,
Public Employees ,
Religious Expression ,
School Districts ,
SCOTUS ,
The Lemon Test
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that school districts may only be liable for employee sexual misconduct when a school official has actual notice of the conduct. In C.S. v. Madison Metropolitan School District, the...more
5/27/2022
/ Child Abuse ,
Child Protection Laws ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employee Misconduct ,
Grooming Policies ,
Illinois ,
Minor Children ,
School Districts ,
Sexual Abuse ,
Sexual Conduct ,
Students ,
Teachers ,
Title IX ,
Vulnerable Victims
School district practices on referrals to local law enforcement for student misconduct in schools are facing intense scrutiny in the wake of the ProPublica investigation reported these past weeks in the Chicago Tribune. ...more
On Friday, a court ruling in Springfield resulted in a temporary restraining order enjoining the Governor from enforcing certain COVID-19 mitigation measures including universal masking. Approximately 150 of Illinois’ 840...more
2/7/2022
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Educational Institutions ,
Health and Safety ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Masks ,
Motion To Enjoin ,
Personal Protective Equipment ,
School Districts ,
Students ,
Teachers ,
TRO ,
Workplace Safety
As promised, following our October 29 alert we more closely examined the conflict between the Governor’s order delaying basketball to Spring and the IHSA’s decision to proceed as scheduled in November. Our review identified a...more
In this episode, we discuss the most top-of-mind issues and lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis....more
10/8/2020
/ Colleges ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Crisis Management ,
Health and Safety ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Remote Learning ,
School Districts ,
School Policies ,
Students ,
Teachers ,
Universities
School leaders have always served a crucial role in communities, and we can’t imagine anyone managing the Coronavirus crisis without them. In this episode, our regular attorney panelists Shelli Anderson, Nicki Bazer, Jennifer...more
Two new laws require school districts and charter schools to reconsider their approach to bullying. The first new bullying law requires school boards and charter schools to make extensive revisions to their bullying policies....more