Employee Rights in "Public Schools" That Are Not Completely Public: What the Corral v. UNO Case Teaches Us About Charter Schools

• In Event: 46.061 - Litigation Trends in K–12 Education Relating to Employees and Traditionally Underserved Students

Abstract

Charter schools, as schools funded publicly and operated privately, create an important legal question: Should charter schools be treated as public or private institutions under the law? Whether charter schools should be seen as public or private entities is especially salient as it relates to labor issues. This paper will seek to provide a coherent theory of how the federal courts have come to understand charter schools as semi-public/semi-private institutions as a result of the Corral v. UNO Charter School Network, Inc. (2013) case. This study will show that the federal courts are willing to hold charter schools to the heightened scrutiny that comes with state actor status when Title VI and Title IX discrimination is involved.

Author

• David S Woo, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College