Monday round-up

By James Bickford
on Aug 1, 2011 at 9:12 am

This weekend’s coverage focused on cases that may be making their way to the Court.

In the Washington Post, Robert Barnes reports on two recent cases – hailing from the Fifth and Sixth Circuits – involving affirmative action in education.  Barnes notes that although Justice O’Connor in Grutter v. Bollinger established an “expiration date” for affirmative action, the cases “have raised the prospect that the issue will return to the high court far ahead of O’Connor’s timeline.”  

At the First Amendment Center, David Hudson, Jr. describes the petition in Doninger v. Niehoff, seeking review of a decision by the Second Circuit holding that school officials enjoyed qualified immunity from suit for their decisions to punish a high school student for comments that she made online and to prohibit other students from wearing shirts that expressed support for the punished student.  The Second Circuit’s decision conflicts with decisions by the Third Circuit holding that school officials can exceed their authority when they punish students for off-campus, online speech that does not cause a substantial disruption at school.

At this blog, Lyle Denniston expands on an earlier post describing the first significant cert. petition to challenge the constitutionality of a provision in the Affordable Care Act requiring all individuals to obtain health insurance by 2014.