The Right to Due Process

This chapter discusses Goss v. Lopez, a Supreme Court case that established students’ rights to due process in school discipline. The case was the result of black student protests in Columbus, Ohio, that ended with mass suspensions of students.The Goss litigation challenged the ability of administrators to suspend and expel students at will. This chapter explores how the protests were rooted in broader concerns about racial discrimination at school and in response to the perceived discriminatory actions of administrators. The case reflected increased concerns about the discriminatory treatment of black students in cases of school discipline, and it discusses the efforts of organizations, including the Children’s Defense Fund and the Southern Regional Council, to publicize and combat this issue.

Reading the World in the Word: The Possibilities for Literacy Instruction Framed Within Human Rights Education

The purpose of this critical ethnography (Madison, 2005; Noblit, Flores & Murrillo, 2004) was to investigate the experiences of teachers and students when literacy instruction was framed within human rights education. Informed by theories of cosmopolitan education (Beck, 2002; Beck & Szneider, 2010; Goldstein, 2007; Harper & Bean, 2009; Hull, 2010), critical socio-cultural theory (Moje & Lewis, 2007) and incorporating Freirean concepts of critical literacy and praxis, this study details the experiences of two servant leader interns (teachers) and sixteen scholars (students) participating in human rights education within the context of a Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School.