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Dec 10, 2024 | 
educationnext.org | Joshua Dunn
In its 2022 landmark decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton, the U.S. Supreme Court officially buried the long-criticized Lemon Test that ostensibly framed Establishment Clause jurisprudence. The three-part test had held that government policy must have a secular purpose, must neither primarily advance nor inhibit religion, and must not create an “excessive entanglement” with religion.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
yahoo.com | Joshua Dunn
The Supreme Court, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, is a “storm center.”Conflicts over institutional power, individual rights and, most significantly, the meaning of the Constitution all find their way to the justices’ chambers. Because the Court has come to exercise final interpretive authority over the Constitution, a power increasingly viewed with skepticism across the ideological spectrum, how justices interpret the text takes on extraordinary importance.
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Jul 1, 2024 | 
educationnext.org | Joshua Dunn
The Oklahoma Supreme Court on June 25 delivered its eagerly anticipated decision on whether the state could authorize an explicitly religious charter school. The court said no, resolving for now the issue in Oklahoma. But its inscrutable reasoning on the First Amendment’s establishment and free exercise clauses indicate that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to take up the issue—in either this case or one that will inevitably arise in another state.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
educationnext.org | Joshua Dunn
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education has long been known for its tendency to overstep in its rulemaking. Many federal agencies are tempted to avoid the notice-and-comment requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by fabricating administrative law in the form of “clarifications” and “guidance”—but no agency has succumbed to that temptation more than OCR.
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Mar 6, 2024 | 
educationnext.org | Joshua Dunn
Over the past 12 years, the U.S. Supreme Court has significantly buttressed the rights of religious organizations to control how they govern themselves and to not be excluded from public programs simply because they are religious.
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Jan 10, 2024 | 
educationnext.org | Joshua Dunn |Michael Petrilli
As regular readers know, I spent much of the past two years co-leading the Building Bridges Initiative, which sought to bring education reformers from left, right, and center together (again). One of the most useful moments in our deliberations came when one participant introduced the notion of a “suitcase word.” Like a suitcase, such words may look the same to everyone, but we each have different ideas of what may lie inside.
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Nov 28, 2023 | 
einnews.com | Joshua Dunn
A new generation of interior paints plays it's part to improve air quality and boasts impressive sustainability features. KANSAS CITY, USA, November 28, 2023 / EINPresswire.com/ -- -- James Alexander Specialty Paints is thrilled to announce the launch of Thrive, a groundbreaking collection of interior paints with a binder made from plant-based materials in lieu of the petrochemical base commonly found in waterborne paints.
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Nov 1, 2023 | 
educationnext.org | R. Shep Melnick |Martin R. West |Joshua Dunn
Questions surrounding the application of Title IX to transgender students have been roiling education politics for nearly 10 years. In 2016, the Obama administration tried to settle one aspect of the issue without public input by declaring in a Dear Colleague Letter that transgender students must be able to use bathrooms matching their gender identity. That effort only generated more conflict and was quickly rescinded under President Trump.
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Jul 19, 2023 | 
educationnext.org | Joshua Dunn |Andrew Bacher-Hicks |Martin R. West |R. Shep Melnick
As k-12 schools officials struggle to address a post-Covid surge of student misbehavior and violence, they must also navigate rapid swings in civil rights directives from the U.S. Department of Education. A decade ago, the Obama administration issued lengthy guidelines on bullying, sexual harassment, and racial disparities in school discipline. It also launched hundreds of protracted investigations to enforce these demands.
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Jul 10, 2023 | 
educationnext.org | Joshua Dunn
The executive director of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Institute of American Civics at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, Joshua Dunn, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, which ends the use of race in college admissions.
