This dissertation surveys several landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases of academic freedom in the 20th and 21st century to argue for the value of a tolerant and liberal interpretation of unrestricted academic freedom. Central to its argument is a defense of Oliver Wendell Holmes 1919 ruling in "Abrams" that society is best served where all…

Social media companies are increasingly being called to account for how their apps are affecting young people. Robert Kim explores "In re: Social Media Addiction," a lawsuit that combines multiple cases that have been brought against social media companies for their addictive effects. The cases illustrate the tension between product…

This defamation case between a youth tennis player, through his parents, against the parent of another young tennis player spotlights the intricate balance between safeguarding participants' rights and ensuring a harassment-free sporting environment.

Educational leaders stretch pennies, often in futile attempts, to provide equitable educational opportunities for all students. An educated populous, or lack thereof, heavily impacts not only students, but also local, state, and national economies, job markets, and public safety. Knowing where to exert public school fiscal effort to reduce…

In June 2023, the Supreme Court held that the admissions systems at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and Harvard University were racially discriminatory, effectively ending affirmative action. Are race-neutral admissions policies at selective K-12 schools next? Bob Kim considers two circuit court cases -- "Coalition for TJ v. Fairfax…

Corporal punishment (CP), or inflicting pain through spanking, hitting, and paddling, is still legally sanctioned and exercised in U.S. schools. We use critical discourse analysis and draw on state policy documents and data from the Office of Civil Rights to investigate which discourses pervade policy texts and how CP is practiced. These sources…

In this case the Court upheld the age-old doctrine of assumption of risk, affirming the inherent dangers of teeing off in golf. Despite a nasty trip on a tree root, the golfer was not entitled to recover for his injuries due to the primary assumption of the risk doctrine. This case sets a precedent for understanding the potential hazards of the…

The 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturned reproductive, health, and abortion rights for women. Using the NASW Code of Ethics, a course assignment is offered for students to examine the professional, ethical commitment and responsibility of social workers to advocate for these rights and…

This article takes as its point of departure an incident in which Helen Keller was accused of plagiarising a short story while residing at the Perkins Institution for the Blind: the so-called "Frost King" incident. Keller's guilt or innocence is not the subject of my inquiry. Rather, how did the culture of Perkins -- as fostered by its…

Emotions are omnipresent in any court of law. In this short take, I suggest applying the Articulated Thought in Simulated Situations (ATSS) paradigm as a useful addition to supplement methodologies like interviewing and observations. ATSS, which originated in social sciences to study cognitive--behavioral topics, can be easily adapted for use in…

Book banning and censorship is appearing again in states and school districts. The history of book banning goes back as far as recorded time. Columnist Jonathan E. Collins discusses the U.S. court system's history support of the First Amendment and against censorship. He outlines the implications of the most recent book banning incidents and the…

This article analyses approaches to listening when creating theatre using the words of real people via a recent tribunal play by Richard Norton-Taylor and Nicolas Kent, "Value Engineering: Scenes from the Grenfell Inquiry" (2021). The article considers the play in relation to transitional justice practices to reveal how listening…

Judges, jurors and other triers of fact often rely upon eyewitness evidence in criminal trials, but eyewitness memory is not always accurate and can sometimes be contaminated. The I-I-Eye is an evidence-based teaching aid designed to improve the evaluation of eyewitness evidence in legal settings. We aimed to further test the I-I-Eye and examine…

Purpose: This article develops a methodological framework to support qualitative analyses of legal texts. Scholars across the social sciences and humanities use qualitative methods to study legal phenomena but often overlook formal legal texts as productive sites for analysis. Moreover, when qualitative researchers do analyze legal texts, they…

Linguistic human rights (LHRs) envelop many questions and ambiguous areas of language pedagogy and sociolinguistics. Difficulties arise as one must understand, due to the demands of linguistic rights, what treatment is owed to whom while balancing the sensitivities of a culture and the linguistic demands of individuals. Further, linguistic…