Employment Law Now V-96- LOTS of Big Employment Law Developments
COVID-19: New York Travel Guidance, Related Disability FAQs, Reopening/Operating Procedures, School District Update
They Said What? First Amendment Issues in 2020
COVID School Landscape
In C.S. v. McCrumb, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit addressed the scope of a public school’s ability to restrict student expression on-campus, particularly when that expression involves politically charged,...more
As Ohio’s K-12 public school administrators gear up for the 2025-2026 school year, understanding what’s ahead is more important than ever. With the passage of Ohio’s biennial budget, new funding provisions, policy shifts, and...more
On June 27, in a 6/3 majority decision in Mahmoud v Taylor, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a public school district violated parents’ constitutional right involving religious freedom by forcing their children to...more
On the final day of its term, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public schools must accommodate parents’ religious objections to certain instructional materials — in this case, LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks used in elementary...more
In a 6-3 decision with the justices split along familiar ideological lines, the United States Supreme Court held on Friday, June 27, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. ___ (2025) (Case No. 24-297)...more
Religious freedom-based challenges to educational policies and actions have gained significant traction in recent years. Cases like Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 US 507 (2022), concerning a football coach’s right...more
Can a public school require students to engage with materials that conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs without offering an opt-out? In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the U.S. Supreme Court enjoined the Montgomery County public...more
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday, June 27, that a Maryland school district’s decision to mandate instruction using LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks, without offering notice or opt-outs to parents, violated the First...more
Preamble to the U.S. Constitution (and this Insights Blog). We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense,...more
Jane Doe v. Riverside Sch. Dist., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 231380 (M.D. Pa., Dec. 23, 2024). After a classmate was convicted for sexual assault of a student outside of school, the student’s family alleged the School District...more
Must a student with a disability prove that their school acted in “bad faith” to win a discrimination case? Until now, courts in some parts of the country said yes, requiring disabled students to meet a higher standard than...more
A Pennsylvania federal district court held that a school district may have violated fundamental parental rights by not informing a parent of her child’s request to be considered transgender. In 2022, an eighth-grade...more
Governor Hochul and the New York State Legislature recently reached an agreement on a “bell-to-bell” smartphone ban in schools. This new legislation will take effect for the 2025-2026 school year and will apply to all schools...more
The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) is developing significant changes to how school discipline is addressed at the federal level. An executive order from President Donald Trump in late April requires the DOE to issue new...more
Amid ongoing conversations about student focus and classroom distractions, Ohio lawmakers are considering new measures to regulate cellphone use in schools. These discussions reflect growing concerns among educators, parents,...more
The Order states that the Federal Government will no longer tolerate known risks to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom that result from the application of school discipline based on discriminatory and unlawful...more
When I took on the role of Title IX Coordinator for the Salt Lake City School District in 2018, I had no prior experience in Title IX. Thankfully, I found my footing through ATIXA training for Title IX coordinators and...more
In a recent student discipline case not involving Title IX, the Ninth Circuit emphatically confirmed that a public school student disciplined for misconduct has a due process right to notice of the specific charges and the...more
The 2020 Title IX Regulations raise the issue of predatory grooming, but only to state that it may be covered by the definition of Sexual Harassment in § 106.30 of the regulations. Thus, to the Department of Education’s...more
Maryland’s highest court, in a 4-3 decision on February 3, narrowly upheld the Child Victims Act of 2023, a law that retroactively and prospectively repeals the civil statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual...more
The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has historically maintained a “sensitive spaces” or “protected areas” policy which restricted the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) agents from making arrests in...more
Social media has made it much easier to disseminate hurtful criticisms about teachers, principals, superintendents and even board of education members, and the good people of Nutmeg are no exception....more
Ohio public schools will soon be required to adopt policies on curriculum content concerning sexual concepts, parental notification about students’ health and well-being, and time for students to attend courses in religious...more
Ohio Senate Bill 206, (SB 206) introduced in 2024, calls for students who post threatening content on social media to be punished with expulsion from school for up to 180 days. The bill defines the proposed prohibited conduct...more
On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, the Ninth Circuit upheld Oregon’s conversational privacy statute as constitutional, finding that Oregonians have an interest in knowing when in-person conversations are recorded and that these...more