ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the issue of individual students' constitutional rights and then addresses the broader issue of civil rights of families and students as they relate to education. American public education was born and developed in Puritan New England. Students' First Amendment freedom of expression and the Civil Rights Movement became entwined when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was asked to resolve the issue raised in two cases involving African American high school students, Burnside v. Byars and Blackwell v. Issaquena County Board of Education. The judicial recognition, growth, and subsequent restriction of the constitutional rights of individual students is just one facet of the sweeping Civil Rights Movement that flourished during the middle years of the 20th century. Aggressive grassroots action, belatedly supported by the courts, also tackled the segregation and denial of opportunity affecting children of various racial, ethnic, and social groups.
