Keywords
parents, teachers, education, fundamental right, segregation, school
Abstract
The author of this student note explores a recent 11th Circuit decision in Strough v. Crenshaw Country Board of Education, which held that the state's proffered interests were not compelling, and therefore failed to override a fundamental right. In the case, a county school board forbid its employees from sending their children to private school, and the regulation was contested by two tenured teachers who sought to enroll their children in a private, racially segregated school. The court eventually found that a parent's right to educate their child was a fundamental right, and the policy reasons advanced by the school board were not compelling. By considering the policy of states to prevent racial discrimination and the rights of the various parties involved in the case (teachers, parents, the state), the note challenges the validity of the fundamental right identified by the 11th Circuit, and finds that parents have no fundamental right to educate their children in racially segregated schools.
Recommended Citation
Stuart Melnick,
Stough v. Crenshaw Country Board of Education: Parental Rights and Segregation Academies,
13 Fordham Urb. L.J. 947
(1985).
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol13/iss4/4