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DISCLAIMER

The information on this site does not constitute legal advice and is for educational purposes only. If you have a dispute or legal problem, please consult an attorney licensed to practice law in your state. Additionally, the information and views presented on this blog are solely the responsibility of Justin Bathon personally, or the other contributors, personally, and do not represent the views of the University of Kentucky or the institutional employer of any of the contributing editors.

Tuesday
Dec202011

Edjurist on the road

 

Justin and I visited the University of South Carolina today.  We were in Columbia for a friend's (Assistant Professor Jesulon Gibbs Brown) wedding.  We toured the campus.  The highlights were the Colleges of Education and Law.  I think that is because we both teach education law.  One highlight is that we found an Institute for Education Law in USC's Law School.  Of course no one was actually there since it's break, but we think that is where the Journal of Law and Education is located.

Monday
Dec122011

McCarthy on Student First Amendment Rights and Cyberbullying

My mentor and titan of the field of education law, Martha McCarthy, rarely makes video appearances. So, we have to treasure the few that we have. Recently, she was installed as the new Presidential Professor at Loyola Marymount University. As part of the introduction, she gave an hour or so lecture on student expression issues, particularly online expression and cyberbullying. It is a great watch for the content, but it is an even better watch to get a sense of her teaching ability. As you can see from the video, it was a fantastic learning experience to have studied under her. 

  

Friday
Dec022011

Do the CMU Faculty Have a New Contract Yet?

The answer to the question is maybe.  After 14 hours of negotiations under the supervision of Isabella Circuit Court Judge Paul H. Chamberlain, the CMU Faculty Association (FA) and CMU Administration issued a joint statement saying that a tentative agreement (TA) has been reached. The contents of the TA haven't been released and the faculty won't get to see them until a meeting that is scheduled a week from Monday.  The vote on the deal in January.  

The faculty participated in a job action on August 22nd after our contract expired on June 30, 2011.  Because of a new Michigan law, CMU refused to pay any wage increases to faculty members and shifted the cost of health care premiums to faculty members once the contract expired.  Negotiations have been ongoing since last spring, and a fact finder was called in to assist with the process.  His report was issued last month.  CMU offered to accept their interpretation of the fact finder's recommendations.  The FA didn't agree with the administration's position and rejected the offer but countered with terms for a one year contract.  This was rejected by CMU.  

The injunction against the FA engaging in job actions expired on Wednesday and a hearing with Judge Chamberlain was scheduled yesterday on both the extension of the injunction and the legality of the law preventing wage increases and shifting health care benefit cost increases to public employees when their collective bargaining agreements expire.  These rulings were not made since a TA was reached.

Following this situation has been my introduction to the collective bargaining process.  I'm going to reserve judgment on whether I think this process is beneficial until I see the final offer compared to the initial offers and the overall impact on the university's culture.  My experience thus far is that CMU has been a wonderful place to work with great students, dedicated faculty members and an adminstration that has many faculty friendly policies in place.  It's been tense on campus this fall with faculty members so unhappy about not having contracts and the terms that were being offered.  I think it's helped with unity among faculty members but definitely hurt faculty/administrator relationships.  We'll see how far this potential agreement goes to repair relationships.  

Here's a link to Michigan's PA 54: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/publicact/pdf/2011-PA-0054.pdf

Wednesday
Nov162011

Distinguished Visitor Slot Open at Kentucky Law--Any Education Law Takers?

Each year, the University of Kentucky College of Law brings to campus for a one-semester visit a distinguished scholar of law to add even more vibrancy to our already vibrant intellectual environment.  In the inaugural year, we hosted noted constitutional law and legal history scholar William Wiecek, and this year we are honored to host noted tax scholar Nina Crimm.  I post the Call for Nominations and Applications here because (1) the position is not limited by field; and (2) it would be great to see a distinguished education law scholar get the position.  Here's the announcement:

University of Kentucky College of Law
James and Mary Lassiter Endowed Distinguished Visiting Professor


The University of Kentucky College of Law seeks applications and nominations for the James and Mary Lassiter Endowed Distinguished Visiting Professor for one semester of the 2012-13 academic year. The Lassiter Distinguished Visiting Professor recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding achievement in his or her field and is not limited by subject matter.

JOB QUALIFICATIONS: Applicants or nominees should have a record of scholarly excellence and of strong classroom teaching. The Lassiter Distinguished Visitor will teach one or two courses and will be encouraged to present workshops on research and participate broadly in the intellectual life of the College of Law.

The University of Kentucky College of Law is committed to diversifying its community and consequently welcomes expressions of interest from, or nominations of, professors who contribute to that diversity. The University of Kentucky is an equal opportunity campus and encourages any candidates who will contribute to the excellence of the academic community through their research, teaching, and service.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Review of candidates will begin upon receipt. Expressions of interest and nominations should be submitted no later than January 23, 2012 and should be directed to:

Prof. Bob Schwemm
Ashland Research Professor of Law
Chair, Lassiter Search Committee
University of Kentucky College of Law
209 Law Building
Lexington, KY 40506-0048
Schwemmr@uky.edu
859.257.6013

Friday
Nov112011

HELP WANTED: Rethinking the Edjurist - Thoughts from ELA Chicago

Well, this has been a very interesting conference for me so far this year. The program has been fantastic, thanks to Tom Hutton and our very own Suzanne Eckes. If you are a person that has an interest in Ed. Law, you need to think about being a member and coming to the conference (next year Savanna). This year, a cool thing happened, an attendee said that she was here because she learned about the conference from us at the Edjurist, so I am quite proud of that and would encourage you to at least consider the same decision.

So, some thoughts regarding this blog:

1. Great presenting with Mark Walsh of Ed Week and the School Law Blog, again. We were invited to present a session on technology and blogging and we had a great crowd. For those of you at the session, a post is coming here with some of the data and links we mentioned in the session. But, the session was interesting in that not only was it very well attended but it was also attended with generally enthusiastic crowd that was excited to see new ideas with technology.  

2. ELA seems to be turning a page regarding their acceptance of technology. For years (and still continuing) I think people looked at me and other techy folks as a little crazy. We (I) was outside the norm and therefore someone to either be ignored or to marginalize. Well, something has changed this year. Now, there is not just acceptance but nearly genuine excitement about what we can accomplish using some of these new tools. Other contributing professors are also pushing the Edjurist and taking some ownership. This development is so extremely heart warming. Obviously, personally, having developed this resource has been a passionate love affair, but it has always been a risk. To see it transition to something that is mainstream and something that other scholars feel is a core resource to our field is almost enough to bring me to tears.  

3. Because of that, I am having some serious thoughts about making some big changes here at the Edjurist. Now that I have another outlet to put some of my more controversial (and less research based) thoughts on technology and education at Education Recoded (please, go check that out and add it to your reader) it is probably time for the Edjurist to mature a little bit into something a bit more mainstream and more scholarly. It may also be time to consider a more formal partnership with ELA or another organization (I'm listening to offers) that will provide a bit more of a formal justification for adding these posts to people's vitas (which is the end-all for keeping your job as a professor).

4. Some of the changes I am considering are: 

  • Expanding our contributor base. Perhaps doubling or more our list of contributing scholars would get more and more relevant content out there to you readers. 
  • Taking and publishing submissions from non-contributors, so that anyone, including people that are not legal scholars, can publish information here. 
  • Creating different types of publications here. From simply updating blog posts, to perhaps more extended scholarly articles (with citations). In this way, I could see elements of the Edjurist evolving into somewhat of a peer-reviewed journal. 
  • Peer-reviewed posts. With our (expanded) team of contributors, we could potentially take some of the posts and elevate them to peer reviewed status. While it won't count as a peer-reviewed electronic journal article (and I do not intend to post those), it does provide a level of confidence to the posts that things like tenure committee's could take some additional faith in. 
  • Many, many more teaching resources. In the past, I've put up my own courseware, but I want to expand beyond that to including resources, organized by topic, that anyone could use, but particularly those teaching education law. I have been requested, by Kevin Welner amongst others, to do this in the past, so perhaps now is the right time to make a larger push here. In the past, I and Jon Becker have worked with NASSP to build a set of online school law resources. Perhaps it is time to work with them again to get some more of those available. 
  • Integrating tweets and other online resources. In the past year, a substantial base of people on twitter have developed enough to keep some relevant and fresh information on school law coming in from twitter. 
  • Building and syndicating a free newsletter that administrator organizations can publish in their magazines each month. This is a bit of a stretch, but if there is a substantial interest, perhaps something to pursue.   

 

So, if anyone wants to chime in on some rethinking here, please let me know either in a comment or just personally. 

 

Friday
Nov042011

Hugging and Other Crimes Against Humanity

This story got a lot of play today where a middle school student was suspended for a mutual hug of his best friend, a female classmate. Here was the rationale: 

“We cannot make an opinion or judgment call on whether a hug is appropriate or not. It’s very difficult to police that on campus,” Christine Davis, the  public information officer for Brevard County Public Schools, told ABC News.

Davis said the school puts policies and procedures in place to help keep the students  focused on learning.

Really? If you can't make a call between an appropriate hug and an inappropriate hug you should be fired. It tells me that you don't know kids and that you don't know their lives. Is it harder to make all those judgment calls? Sure. But, that's what you get paid to do, so stop shirking your responsiblity through made-up policies (no law requires anything like this). 

Want to know why our school systems can't produce the passionate, dedicated, emotionally committed leaders of the next century ... it's because we feel we have to sanitize our schools and students away from such crimes against humanity as hugs between friends.  

When (it's probably not an if) these questionable school leaders lose their jobs ... "no hug for you." 

Thursday
Nov032011

I'm Still Alive (Very Much So, In Fact)

I need to update some things around here. So here goes: 

Personal Updates: 

1. I'm writing for a new blog at BigThink called Education Recoded. It is sort of a second generation project for me as I am really beginning to find my unique voice. The title I think sort of sums up my intentions there, so read this post as to the great project I'm undertaking. BigThink has a mass audience, so it is a pleasure and honor to write there (I promise I'll keep writing here as well).

2. I have some new model legislation out on virtual schooling. Check that out. Thanks to NEPC and their leaders Kevin Welner and Gene Glass for including me. That was a fun project. I have some more on virtual and supplemental online education coming out soon, so I'll update on that as well. 

Team Updates: 

The CASTLE Directors at UK. This team is rocking! 1. CASTLE. We're rolling now. Scott has a new book out. We have a new policy brief series, the first of which went up last week. Two of our directors are doing consulting work in Cambodia as I post this with additional countries under negotiation. We are hosting 2 outstanding visiting scholars this semester. We are building an outstanding staff. We are on the cusp of launching new programs at UK (couple more approvals to secure). It is going as well as I could have hoped for and we are just getting rolling, so ... smiles. 

2. Law and Policy Group. As I've mentioned on here before, we have an extremely strong education law and policy group at UK and that group is finding their footing and starting to produce results. Our first conference last year was successful, so we are doing a second so if you are in or around Kentucky, come check that out. Also, Neal Hutchens has led the effort to develop a new refereed journal, the Kentucky Journal of Higher Education Policy and Practice and, of course, don't forget the new higher education group blog that is rolling along impressively: HigherEducationLaw.org.  This group is starting to come together nicely. 

Site Updates: 

1. I changed the commenting platform to Disqus. I hate to lose access to all the old comments (I still have access if you need them), but the spamming was killing me and I think Disqus is a better filter for that kind of stuff. Plus, Disqus is a much more powerful platform. You can login with multiple existing web ID's and you can track and reply to comments even across multiple different blogs and platforms. It is a huge improvement, so it was time to pull the trigger on that. 

2. I've disabled much of the page content I had at the top. With all the other stuff already mentioned in this post and in my push toward tenure over the next year or two, I do not have time to keep all of those updated and accurate. So, for now at least, I think it is best to just put those on hold. 

Friday
Oct142011

New Texas School Finance Case

I don't have access to the court documents yet, so I can't give a full analysis at this time, but a coalition of plaintiffs has filed a new school finance challenge in Texas.  Details here

A couple of initial points based on the linked story.  First, this is not a part of the longstanding Edgewood v. Kirby litigation, the last iteration of which was decided by the Texas Supreme Court in 2005.  It is a new case.  Second, it is difficult to be sure from the summary, but the claims appear to be based more on "equity" theories than on "adequacy" theories, though there is a nod to adequacy at the end of the story. 

Any readers with more specific information are invited to comment. 

Friday
Oct142011

Education Commissioner Criticized for Trip to Brazil, But Is that the Real Story?

The Kentucky Commissioner of Education is taking some political heat for going on trips to locations that include Brazil that were financed by NCS Pearson Inc., which has a contract with the state to develop standardized tests for Kentucky students. Critics are suggesting that it wasn't appropriate for the commissioner to take such trips on the company's dime.

In reading the story what amazed me, however, was that the state has a contract with the Pearson to pay the company a guaranteed $7.6 million thus far and the amount could reach $64.6 million to provide testing services through 2018, according to news accounts.  In terms of educational policy, I just can't help but wonder if we may have reached a certain level of accountability obsession.  If the state is spending this much on one set of tests, how much does the rest of the state's education budget go to accountability measures and systems? At what point do we actually get more bang for our education bucks by spending those funds elsewhere, such as towards classroom instruction?

Monday
Sep192011

State Court Funding Symposium

I want to announce to our readers an upcoming event at the Universiy of Kentucky College of Law that has implications for education law.  The event, jointly sponsored by the Kentucky Law Journal, the American Bar Association, and the Center for State Courts, is a symposium on the funding of state courts, many of which are currently in what can best be described as a resource crisis.  Here is a link to the schedule of events on September 23-24, which include Keynote addresses by both Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the UC-Irvine School of Law and current ABA President (and UK Law grad) Bill Robinson. 

Now, what does this have to do with education law?  Well, two major things.  First, as with almost all categories of law, the majority of education related disputes are resolved in state judicial systems.  A funding crisis in those systems will inevitably lead to a crisis in educational dispute resolution.  Second, as many of you know, to the extent that "education rights" exist in our system, these rights are primarily state constitutional rights.  Where state judicial systems are hampered, the development of these rights is also hampered.  The issue of state court funding is therefore a vital one for those interested in education policy and law. 

I encourage anyone with an interest in these issues of access to justice (and the ability to be in beautiful Lexington, KY this Friday and Saturday) to attend the symposium. 

Monday
Sep122011

The South Dakota School Finance Decision

My blogging haitus is nearly at an end.  For now, I offer a couple of quick thoughts about the recent South Dakota Supreme Court decision rejecting an adequacy-based challenge to the state's school financing system.

First, the state defendant won this one on the merits, based on the evidence (particularly, the lack of evidence of causation--more on that below).  This, I think, is the first adequacy case of which this can be said.  The recent state victories in Indiana and Missouri were not truly of the same character, both being based on a general approach to judicial deference bordering on the political question doctrine.  The recent Oregon decision, also a state merits victory, was based on a quirky textual feature of the Oregon Constitution that does not exist in any other.  The South Dakota decision, while deferential to legislative policy choices (especially in stating the standard for proving unconstitutionality as "beyond a reasonable doubt"), is based on a much deeper review of the evidence. 

Second, and relatedly, the opinion is very well-reasoned and fair in its explanation (I, of course, take no position as to whether the court is representing the state of the record evidence properly, as I was not involved in the trial and have no access to the record on appeal).  It takes the arguments of both the state and the plaintiffs very seriously, and is does not appear to place any kind of thumb on the evidentiary scale for either party.  This approach is not necessarily new, but this is one of very few school finance decisions on the merits where a state supreme court has gone out of its way to show the readers of its opinion that both sides indeed presented good arguments.  I think that goes a long way toward fostering the opinion's perceived legitimacy. 

Finally, and most importantly, the South Dakota decision is also the first that has required the plaintiffs to establish a causal link between the many educational deficiencies that they were able to establish in the evidence and the action or inaction of the state government.  As perennial state-side litigator Al Lindseth has pointed out both in scholarship and in court, in adequacy cases in which plaintiffs prevail, there is little to no discussion of causation.  This South Dakota decision hinges almost completely on the insufficiency of evidence of causation.  This feature could make the South Dakota decision a very impactful one. 

I look forward to seeing how this opinion works its way into the scholarship. 

 

Friday
Sep022011

Edjurist now has a cousin in HigherEducationLaw.org

I've been away from posting a while, but I've been working on a little project and wanted to announce that Edjurist now has a younger relative.  Fortunate enough to have assembled what I think is a pretty neat bunch of folks, we have just launched HigherEducationLaw.  The site, as the really creative name implies, will focus on legal issues in higher education. We're just getting started, but I think that we'll soon be putting out some really good content.

I've really enjoyed being a contributor on Edjurist and plan to stay on as long as I can keep stealing the password from Justin. My hope is that the two sites can reference each other often and share content of interest to both audiences.  For those of you interested in higher education legal issues, I hope that, along with the Edjurist, you'll add HigherEducationLaw to the blogs that you follow.

And now that I've got the site up and going, I also plan to be able to pick up the pace with posting on here.

Sunday
Aug282011

Ain't That a Kick in the Wallet

Illinois is no longer funding regional superintendent positions. Not a huge deal except that they all have continued to work for the past 2 months without pay. And, Friday, a judge told them that's the breaks and thank you for volunteering and you're welcome to continue to do so. The legislature might step in and override the governor, but short of that these educators are out of jobs, practically if not technically. 

Of course, guys like this make everyone else look bad :) 

Anyway, back on point, as a person who was fond of my regional superintendent while working in Illinois, this is a real shame. Were there too many regions. Probably. Was their bloating and waste at this level? Yeah. But, did Illinois need to eliminate the entire structure? Surely not. 

I'm sure the legislature and governor's office will negotiate some new regional structuring, but sometimes Illinois just can't help but embarass itself in the process. 

Friday
Aug262011

Restraining order extended at CMU

I woke up very early this morning and traveled to Mt. Pleasant to attend the hearing on the motion for a temporary restraining order against the CMU Faculty Association.  Judge Paul H. Chamberlain asked the parties into his chamber where they agreed to extend the restraining order against any collective work stoppage until 20 days after the Michigan Employment Relations Commission fact finding report is issued.  Fact finding is scheduled for the second week in September and the report is expected 30 days after it concludes.  The administration was ordered to bargain in good faith. Both sides considered this order a win.

To see a copy of the order, check out this page: http://www.cmufaccc.org/

The big wins for the faculty association were an agreement that we could lower our out of pocket health insurance cost by moving to a higher copay for our health insurance, an expedited consideration by the court of an issue relating to pay for individuals who earned promotion last year, and a restoration of our First Amendment Rights.  The original order prohibited the FA from mass picketing.  In response to that order, students picketed throughout the week and also staged a silent protest at the courthouse this morning. Members of the Ferris State University Faculty Association drove an hour to CMU to picket in front of the administration building on Thursday.

What am I learning from this experience?  Well, I'm learning FA jargon.  I'm hearing "FA Strong" and "in solidarity" a lot this week.  We even chant while picketing, "Contract now!"  I've discovered why people are so loyal to the Michigan Education Association.  They paid every FA member for the work they did on Monday during the work stoppage and MESSA (our insurance provider) extended our health coverage in case CMU chose to cancel it.  Plus they sent in people from all over the state to assist with the job action.  I've seen how collective action can bring people together.  We've had several closed door meetings where almost all of the 600+ faculty members on campus attended.  People came willingly too, not like the annual college-wide meetings where they take attendance and threaten to dock your pay if you don't come in order to encourage attendance.  I've seen what a great tool Facebook is for sharing information.  Our closed group page for CMU faculty has an enormous amount of information on it.  On the downside, it's very clear from numerous comments at the meetings and on Facebook that the faculty's relationship with the University has been severely damaged by this situation.  One of the reasons I love working at CMU is the great relationship among employees on campus and the various policies CMU has in place that benefit employees.  I'm hoping that today's ruling is a step towards amicably resolving the bargaining issues that remain and in restoring the damaged relationship between the faculty and the administration.  I think it we will still have a long road to walk though.  I'm sure some of it will be with picket signs!

Friday
Aug262011

An Injunction Against the Missouri Facebook Law

Late this Friday afternoon, only 4 days before the law was scheduled to go into effect, word came that a judge in Missouri has issued an injunction against implementation of the Missouri anti-social networking (Facebook) law between teachers and students. Here is a local story on it (thanks to my good friend Dave Doty @canyonsdave). Also, thanks to the Missouri State Teachers' Association, who filed the suit, for following up on twitter with their press release

First, this is just a preliminary injunction. This is not a final judgment and the matter is still to be decided. 

But, the language the judge used is outstanding. Please, give it a read: 

[The law implicates the First Amendment and the Missouri Constitution.] "Even if a complete ban on certain forms of communication between certain individuals could be construed as content nuetral and only a reasonable restriction on "time, place and manner," the breadth of the prohibition is staggering. The Court finds ... social networking is extensively used by educators. It is often the primary, if not sole manner, of communication between the Plaintiffs and their students. Examination of the statute indicates that it would prohibit all teachers from using any non-work-related social networking sites which allow exclusive access with current or former students. It clearly prohibits communication between family members and their teacher parents using these types of sites. The Court finds that the statute would have a chilling effect on speech."

Well, yeah. Of course. In an upcoming article in the Journal of School Leadership, I predicted as much if a state tried to ban Facebook in this way. This judge is clearly on the same wave-length. I just don't see how a law similar to this one has a chance of being constitutional. There is just too much protected speech that will be chilled. The example I used in the article is my.barackobama.com - where teachers and students must be free to interact in any reasonable interpretation of the First Amendment. Those kinds of examples are probably not what the legislators in Missouri were thinking of when they wrote the law, but putting a broad ban on social networking is going to chill all kinds of clearly constitutional speech. I think the judge understood that and really had no choice but to issue the injunction. 

This is a great victory for the Missouri teachers. But, it is just the first decision in what promises to be an extended legal battle that will probably eventually wind up in the Missouri Supreme Court. 

 

Wednesday
Aug242011

Kentucky on iTunesU

Today we launched the Kentucky iTunesU network (link will ask you to open iTunes and say yes) at Woodford County High School where the school is moving this fall to a 1-1 iPad environment. It was a project of the Technology Leadership Lab at the UK College of Education, which is now CASTLE. It was also in partnership with the Kentucky Department of Education, Kentucky Educational Television and Woodford County School District.

Thus, in particular, I would like to thank Marty Park, Brian Spellman and Greg French, respectively, for being part of the core team that made this event happen. Dr. Scott Hawkins, the superintendent, and Rob Akers, the principal, were also instrumental because they let us invade their school (and convinced their district to move toward 1-1 tablets). Also, thanks to the speakers for coming and sharing their thoughts: Gov. Steve Beshear, President Eli Capilouto, Director Shea Hopkins and Commissioner Terry Holliday. There are also a lot of other people to thank that made this event possible, my law student Chase Bannister, the press teams at UK, KDE and KET, the various teachers and staff at Woodford County High School, and many others. 

Here is some of the media coverage of the event:

LEX 18 (Video)

WKYT (Video)

Kentucky Herald Leader (Newspaper)

State Journal in Frankfort (Newspaper)

WUKY (radio)

 

So, this was a fabulous event. I'm proud we brough this to launch (been working on it for about a year and a half (far too long)) and happy that it might be useful to students around Kentucky. So, thanks to all for helping ... and now it is on to the next project. 

Tuesday
Aug232011

Till the Law Comes to Call ...

No more ministers leading a prayer before football games for one of our southern Kentucky counties (down at the Cumberland Gap - which is worth reading about if you have a minute). 

All of this nonsense is well and good until the law comes to call. I get it. I'm from a rural area and we prayed before each high school game too (yes, I my playing time consisted of rooting from the sidelines, of course). The principal and superintendent in that district probably knew full well that it was wrong (there is plenty of precedence out there on it), but the coach probably begged and the local board president has probably mentioned how lovely it is that we have God on our side against Hazard or whomever. But, when you get caught (like they did), it is just best to own up to it and change your behavior. Doubling down on behavior like that only digs a deeper grave. 

So, everyone keeps their job, the district loses no money, the football team will probably not lose any more games, and life goes on. A couple years from now, few will even remember it. 

That's what you do when the law comes to call. 

 

Tuesday
Aug232011

Missouri: Enter the ACLU

Well, this was just a matter of time. The ACLU is suing the state of Missouri against their Facebook law. 

Actually, you have to give the ACLU some credit lately. They are also watching schools for limiting some speech by blocking certain websites in a discriminatory fashion. Just in Missouri this last week the ACLU got a consortium of districts to unblock some pro-LGBT sites that they had been blocking. 

You can think what you want of the ACLU and there has been occassions where I have disagreed with their positions, but for now the ACLU seems to be on the side of proper and healthy technology integration in schools. 

Monday
Aug222011

Temporary Restraining Order Issued

So, I spent the day at the crisis center answering questions about what was going on.  The most common question was whether we had additional t-shirts or buttons to support the cause.  CMU's faculty association has been ordered back to work by a local judge.  Here's the ex parte order: http://cmich.edu/documents/faculty/temp_restraining_order.pdf

It says that the university will suffer irreparable injury without it and it prohibits us from doing anything that is not the full, faithful and proper performance of our job duties.  The order says we cannot mass picket.  The word on the street is that students are planning protests for tomorrow.  

The hearing on the temporary restraining order is on Friday.  

Here's a news report on the situation.

Judge to CMU faculty: get back to work: woodtv.com

Monday
Aug222011

Picketing at CMU

Here I am on the picket line this morning (on the left).  The faculty association greeted the administration at 7 a.m. this morning with a sea of yellow shirts and signs.  I'm assigned to the crisis center.  Maybe my legal expertise will come in handy ...

 

Here's some commentary on the subject: http://www.cm-life.com/2011/08/22/editorial-work-stoppage-by-faculty-an-answer-to-university-inaction/

 

 

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