This Essay problematizes the increased propertization and commodification of education and calls for a rethink of the emergent concept of “education theft” through the lens of intellectual property and human rights. This concept refers to the phenomenon where parents, or legal guardians, enroll children in schools outside their school districts by intentionally violating the residency requirements. The Essay begins by revisiting the debate...
Education Law
Across the country, violent tactics were employed to create and maintain all-white municipalities. The legacy of that violence endures today. An underexamined space in which that violence endures is within school districts. Many school district boundary lines encompass geographic areas that were created as whites-only municipalities through both physical violence and law. Yet principles that inform how school district boundary lines are drawn fail...
Previous work suggests that excludability is the main attribute of educational property and residence is the lynchpin of that exclusion. Once a child is non-excludable, the story goes, he should have complete access to the benefits of educational property. This Essay suggests a challenge to the idea that exclusion is the main attribute of educational property. By following four fictional children and their quests to own educational property in...
Property law is having a moment, one that is getting education scholars’ attention. Progressive scholars are retooling the concepts of ownership and entitlement to incorporate norms of equality and inclusion. Some argue that property law can even secure access to public education despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s longstanding refusal to recognize a right to basic schooling. Others worry that property doctrine is inherently exclusionary. In their...
In 2021, California became the first U.S. state to require that public high schools teach ethnic studies. Given polarized politics over what that mandate might mean, this Essay reflects on the role of ethnic studies curriculum in one place, through the voices of three people. The place is Stockton—the most diverse city in America and home to more than twenty years of grassroots investment in ethnic studies courses. Oral histories from three generations...
Colleges and universities are facing mounting pressure to tackle the pervasive problem of student-perpetrated sexual misconduct. Whether these institutions lack the expertise or, less optimistically, the willpower, colleges and universities have struggled to sift through a morass of Department of Education regulations, conflicting case law, and institutional incentives in order to design disciplinary procedures that protect the rights of both complainant...