Wieboldt on "Shall We Settle for Anything Less Than Complete Equality?" Catholic Power and the First National Fight for Parental Rights in Education, 1947-1962

Dennis J. Wieboldt, III, University of Notre Dame, is publishing "Shall We Settle for Anything Less Than Complete Equality?" Catholic Power and the First National Fight for Parental Rights in Education, 1947-1962 at 34 Rel. & Am. Cul.-- (2026). Here is the abstract.

After the Supreme Court incorporated the Establishment Clause against the states in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), raucous national debates broke out between Protestants, Catholics, and Jews about the constitutionality of government aid to parochial schools. This article offers the first account of how these interconfessional hostilities shaped the Catholic Church's parochial school litigation strategy after Everson. To undercut claims that government aid to parochial schools would perniciously enrich the (Roman) Catholic hierarchy, the Church's public spokesmen increasingly framed debates about parochial school aid after Everson as implicating the constitutional rights of American parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. In so doing, these figures eschewed arguments made in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the government has an obligation to fund institutional religion. Moreover, to prevent anti-Catholic prejudice from impacting the disposition of discrete church-state disputes, lawyers associated with the Catholic bishops' official episcopal organization sometimes refrained from publicly involving themselves in local litigation, all while privately supplying litigants with strategic counsel. In concluding, this article suggests that the Church's post-Everson approach to defending the constitutionality of parochial school aid was motivated by a consistent conviction that parents who sent their children to Catholic schools ought to be treated in the same manner as parents who sent their children to other nonpublic (but non-Catholic) schools. When the scope of government aid to nonpublic schools grew in later years, this argument could therefore be invoked to support parochial schools' equal inclusion in more robust aid programs.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Bandes on Ferguson and Changes in Legal Education

Susan A. Bandes, DePaul University College of Law, has published Moral Shock and Legal Education at 65 Journal of Legal Education 298 (2015). Here is the abstract.

This essay is part of a Journal of Legal Education symposium issue on how recent high profile revelations about racially discriminatory policing in Ferguson and elsewhere have affected the way law professors teach, think, write and talk about criminal justice, civil rights, and law in general.

Download the essay from SSRN at the link.

Foucault, Law, and the Federal School Desegregation Cases

Gordon Hull, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Department of Philosophy, has published Equitable Biopolitics: What Federal School Desegregation Cases Can Teach Us About Foucault, Law and Biopower. Here is the abstract.

The present paper looks at the intersection of juridical and biopower in the U.S. Supreme Court’s school desegregation cases. These cases generally deploy “equitable relief” as a relay between the juridicially-specified injury of segregation and the biopolitical mandates of integration. This strategy is evident in the line of cases running from Brown to Swann v. Mecklenburg, and has its antecedents in pre-war economic regulation. Later cases have attempted to close this relay, confining equality and rejecting claims of equitable relief. Study of the school desegregation cases thus both shows an example of the intersection of biopower and law (which has been difficult on Foucauldian grounds), as an example of the biopolitical race war that Foucault identifies in Society must be Defended.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

"The Wire" In Law School Courses

Andrea Dennis, University of Georgia Law School, has published Teaching The Wire: Crime, Evidence and Kids at 64 Journal of Legal Education 111 (2014). Here is the abstract.

I have a confession: I have only watched Season 1 of The Wire, and it has been many years since I did that. Thus, both my knowledge and pedagogical use of the show are limited. What explanation can I offer for my failings? I am a Maryland native with family who resides in Baltimore City, or Charm City as it is affectionately called. I worked for several years as an assistant federal public defender in Baltimore City. Over time, I have seen the city evolve, and I have seen it chew up and spit out many good people and some not so good people. So, in the past, I told students who asked whether I had ever seen The Wire: “Why should I watch a fictional version of what I (painfully) experienced as reality?” Although it took many years after the series ended, I did eventually break down and watch Season 1. In doing so, I discovered that the show is an ideal source for exploration of issues arising in three courses I teach. To date, I have used portions of Season 1 as platforms for assessing students’ comprehension of the materials in these courses.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.

Call For Papers--Law and Education Conference

Call for Papers


International Studies on Law and Education


Centro de Estudos Medievais - Oriente & Ocidente - EDF/FEUSP Universidade de São Paulo


Universidade do Porto

Faculdade de Direito

Inst. Jurídico Interdisciplinar



MALLORQUÍ_RUSCALLEDA, Enric (org.).

Law and Culture in Medieval /Early Modern Europe & the Atlantic World


The international peer reviewed journal International Studies on Law and Education (ISSN 1516-6821) published by the Universidade de São Paulo, the Universidade do Porto and the Editora Mandruvá of Brazil requests submissions of previously unpublished articles that treat any aspect of the interrelationship between law and culture in Medieval/early modern Europe and the Atlantic world. Studies with a strong comparative and or interdisciplinary focus are encouraged.



Submissions and any questions should be directed to Prof. Enric Mallorquí-Ruscalleda (emallorq@hotmail.com), Assistant Professor of Medieval Iberian and early modern Transatlantic studies at Mississippi State University (USA), and coordinator of this volume.

Although the language of preference is English, studies written in any romance language, as well as German, will be considered.



The deadline for submission is the 3oth of November of 2011, and decisions regarding acceptance will be communicated no later than fifteen days later (along with necessary modifications, if applicable).



For more information about the journal, the evaluation criteria, or other relevant questions, please see:



http://www.hottopos.com/harvard1/index.htm