Supreme Court Attitudes About School Discipline Compared to Attitudes of Urban Teachers

Abstract

During the 1980s, the Burger and Rehnquist Supreme Courts have imposed a considerable degree of conservative leavening to the liberal decisions of the Warren and early Burger Courts affecting Constitutional civil rights applied to discipline in public schools. The practical effect of these decisions has been subjected to debate' as has the extent to which administrators and teachers are aware of their existence.2 Nevertheless, these decisions are very powerful determinants of local, state, and national policy affecting public school discipline measures. The question considered here is the extent to which U.S. Supreme Court liberal and conservative decisions regarding student discipline policy correspond to the perceived needs and attitudes of those teachers presumed to be most in need of strong support for student order and control; that is, teachers in urban inner-city schools with high rates of student misbehavior.