Sparing rods, spoiling children: the impossibility of school discipline.

LAST November in Las Vegas, ten students on the Cheyenne High School football team were involved in a melee with the opposing squad immediately following a game. The incident was broadcast repeatedly on local television and led Jerry Hughes, the executive director of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, to suspend the team from participating in the upcoming regional playoffs. "It was a brawl, an outright brawl," Hughes noted. "We hate doing these things, but we felt it was a very serious situation that occurred."

Within 48 hours, however, parents of the suspended players had contacted lawyers and brought suit in Clark County District Court to overturn the Interscholastic Association's decision. Before the end of the week, county judge Jackie Glass issued a restraining order requiring the association to permit the Cheyenne football team to participate in the playoffs as their due-process rights had apparently been violated and the suspended players would suffer irreparable harm if denied the ability to play. "Right now ... we don't have any ability whatsoever to enforce the rules," responded Hughes. It is a sentiment echoed by many teachers and administrators across the country. How did we get to a point where courts increasingly intervene to prevent schools and related organizations from exercising traditional disciplinary authority? What have the consequences of these changes been for students, schools, and communities?

Between 1968 and 1975, students gained the right to due-process protections for the most minor aspects of day-to-day school discipline. The most significant Supreme Court case during this era was Goss v. Lopez, which held that students facing short suspensions must be provided with "rudimentary" due process--an ill-defined concept that included such features as a right of students to know the charges against them. Other features of due process--such as the right to a formal hearing, the right to legal counsel, and the right to call witnesses--were mandated for more serious disciplinary infractions. After Goss v. Lopez, however, even low-level punishments (e.g., in-school detention or lowering a grade) were subjected to student and parental challenges in court.

Within a year of the case, the Supreme Court also decided Wood v. Strickland, which found that if public-school teachers or principals knowingly violated a student's due-process rights, they could be held personally liable for financial damages. Predictably, there has been a chilling effect on school personnel's willingness to monitor student behavior. The intoxicating combination of extending rudimentary due process with Goss v. Lopez and personal liability in Wood v. Strickland also gave birth to a cottage industry of professional services. Today, public-school teachers and administrators can typically expect to receive periodic mailings from insurance companies offering supplementary personal-liability protection over and above what their union or professional associations offer. In addition, it is increasingly common for local school districts to maintain legal counsel: In 1974, prior to Goss v. Lopez, the National School Boards Association's Council of School Attorneys had 250 members; today it has over 3,000.

The emergence of student rights and a field of law limiting professional discretion in the exercise of school discipline has had dramatic effects on our capacity to prepare youths for productive roles as adult citizens. Court challenges have undermined assumptions that school discipline occurs in the best interest of students. Recent public-opinion polls of teachers and administrators have revealed widespread concern about the threat of legal challenges. In a Public Agenda ...