ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses key legal and ethical issues pertaining to learning communities (LCs) in higher education. It provides an exhaustive exploration of legal and ethical issues in education, but rather to highlight and focus on particular issues that may affect LCs more predominantly and uniquely. Powerful LCs should specifically address the membership selection process, potential discrimination, and barriers to access in their risk management process. The importance of having a carefully crafted and transparent purpose statement, membership criteria, and selection process for ensuring that an LC is operating in a fair, ethical, and legal manner must be stressed. Complaints about discrimination do not always focus on the selection process; rather, they may center on how the resulting membership produced unfair or uneven representation of the protected group of individuals. Some selection processes do not involve legally prohibited discrimination but are instead perceived to be unethical. LCs can present a variety of legal and ethical access concerns.
