Justin Driver to deliver lecture at University of Oregon's African American Workshop and Speaker Series

Speaker to discuss the courts and constitutional rights for students

How courts have affected public schools addressing issues such as corporal punishment, drug testing, and transgender restrooms will be analyzed by a constitutional law expert in the next African American Workshop and Speaker Series lecture.

Justin Driver, Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, will present "Are Public Schools Becoming Constitution-Free Zones?" April 8 from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Redwood Auditorium in the Erb Memorial Union. It is the last event of this year’s African American Workshop and Speaker Series.

Driver will address how the U.S. Supreme Court’s treatment of topics such as race, sex, religion, crime, liberty, patriotism and equality has shaped public education and the constitutional rights of students around the country. He will delve into concepts explored in his 2018 book, “The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind,” in which he says that “since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated responsibility in protecting students’ rights, risking transforming public schools into Constitution-free zones and in turn jeopardizing our basic constitutional order.”

Read more at University of Oregon Campus News

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