The Courts The Charter And The Schools

The adoption of the Canadian Constitution Act in 1982, with its embedded Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ushered in an era of unprecedented judicial influence on Canada's public policy. The Courts, the Charter, and the Schools examines how the Constitution Act has affected educational policy during the first twenty-five years of the Charter by analyzing landmark rulings handed down from appellate courts and the Supreme Court. The contributors consider the influence that Charter cases have had on educational policies and practices by discussing cases involving fundamental freedoms, legal rights, equality rights, and minority language rights. Demonstrating why and how the Charter was invoked, interpreted, and applied in each of these cases, this volume also highlights the resulting consequences for Canada's public schools. An illuminating collection of essays by prominent legal scholars and educational commentators, The Courts, the Charter, and the Schools is a significant contribution to the study of educational law and policy in Canada.

Ian Greene offers an insider's perspective on the role of judges, lawyers, and expert witnesses; the cost of litigation; the representativeness of juries; legal aid issues; and questions of jury reform. He also examines judicial activism in the wider context of public participation in courts administration and judicial selection and of how responsive the courts are to the expectations of Canadian citizens. The Courts moves its examination of the judicial system beyond the well-trodden topics of judicial appointment, discipline, independence, and review to consider the ways in which courts affect daily life in terms of democratic principles. Although courts are often viewed as elitist and unaccountable, they are more valuable aspect of democratic practice than most citizens realize.

"Here finally is a book that unveils the politics that infuse Canadian courts and their decisions ... and warns us of the effects of a judicialized politics on our democratic traditions." - Leslie A. Pal, Carleton University

A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice An award-winning constitutional law scholar at the University of Chicago (who clerked for Judge Merrick B. Garland, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor) gives us an engaging and alarming book that aims to vindicate the rights of public school stu­dents, which have so often been undermined by the Supreme Court in recent decades. Judicial decisions assessing the constitutional rights of students in the nation’s public schools have consistently generated bitter controversy. From racial segregation to un­authorized immigration, from antiwar protests to compul­sory flag salutes, from economic inequality to teacher-led prayer—these are but a few of the cultural anxieties dividing American society that the Supreme Court has addressed in elementary and secondary schools. The Schoolhouse Gate gives a fresh, lucid, and provocative account of the historic legal battles waged over education and illuminates contemporary disputes that continue to fracture the nation. Justin Driver maintains that since the 1970s the Supreme Court has regularly abdicated its responsibility for protecting students’ constitutional rights and risked trans­forming public schools into Constitution-free zones. Students deriving lessons about citizenship from the Court’s decisions in recent decades would conclude that the following actions taken by educators pass constitutional muster: inflicting severe corporal punishment on students without any proce­dural protections, searching students and their possessions without probable cause in bids to uncover violations of school rules, random drug testing of students who are not suspected of wrongdoing, and suppressing student speech for the view­point it espouses. Taking their cue from such decisions, lower courts have upheld a wide array of dubious school actions, including degrading strip searches, repressive dress codes, draconian “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies, and severe restrictions on off-campus speech. Driver surveys this legal landscape with eloquence, highlights the gripping personal narratives behind landmark clashes, and warns that the repeated failure to honor students’ rights threatens our basic constitutional order. This magiste­rial book will make it impossible to view American schools—or America itself—in the same way again.

In Governing from the Bench, Emmett Macfarlane draws on interviews with current and former justices, law clerks, and other staff members of the court to shed light on the institution’s internal environment and decision-making processes. He explores the complex role of the Supreme Court as an institution; exposes the rules, conventions, and norms that shape and constrain its justices’ behavior; and situates the court in its broader governmental and societal context, as it relates to the elected branches of government, the media, and the public.