Articles

PLF staff attorney, Ralph Kasarda, will be appearing on the KQED Forum radio show at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, October 15, 2013, to discuss Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.  The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument in that case tomorrow.  The Court’s decision will likely determine the constitutionality of state ba ...

Education Reform — Charter Schools The Georgia Supreme Court issued an excellent decision in Atlanta Independent School System v. Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School, Inc.  As explained in more detail in our blog post, public school districts in Georgia are required to allocate money to charter schools according to a statutory formula.  Bu ...

Property Rights — Washington State We filed this amicus brief in Keene Valley Ventures v. City of Richland in support of a petition for review before the Washington State Supreme Court.  Here, the town deliberately flooded the landowner’s property and a trial court found there to be a taking.  But no damages were assigned because the ...

In this excellent post from Discriminations, John Rosenberg describes the five fallacies of the Sixth Circuit’s “jaw-dropping” decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.  In Schuette, the court said Michigan’s voters had somehow violated the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by enacting ...

  After 31 years, the Supreme Court will finally take another look at the “political structure” doctrine.  If you didn’t read Monday’s post by PLF College of Public Interest Law fellow, Jonathan Wood, you may be unfamiliar with that doctrine.  In 1969, and again in 1982, the United States Supreme Court relied ...

The oral argument in last week’s Prop. 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry, suggested that the justices may be skeptical of the Hunter-Seattle doctrine.  While PLF has taken no position on the merits of the Prop. 8 case, the United States, as amici, put forth a legal theory that relates to a doctrine in which PLF … ...

Individual Rights — School Choice Victory We had a nice victory from the Indiana Supreme Court when it upheld in Meredith v. Pence that state’s school choice program. As we’ve explained, this is a great victory for school choice because Indiana’s program is expansive and the teacher-funded attack on that state’s vouche ...

May the voters of a state amend their state constitution to prohibit discrimination and preferences based upon race?  The Supreme Court will address that question.  Today, with Justice Kagan recusing herself, the Court granted certiorari in Schuette v. Michigan Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, another case concerning racial preferences. ...

Property Rights — Water, Fish and Takings The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal on ripeness grounds of Casitas Municipal Water District v. United States.  This was the case where the district alleged that a fish ladder and water diversion required to protect endangered fish took its water rights (see picture to right ...