91 research outputs found
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Unauthorized Alien Students, Higher Education, and In-State Tuition Rates: A Legal Analysis
[Excerpt] Currently, federal law prohibits states from granting unauthorized aliens certain postsecondary educational benefits on the basis of state residence, unless equal benefits are made available to all U.S. citizens. This prohibition is commonly understood to apply to the granting of “in-state” residency status for tuition purposes. Legislation to amend this federal law has routinely been introduced in previous Congresses, and several similar bills have been introduced in the 111th Congress, including H.R. 1751, S. 729, and H.R. 4321. Meanwhile, some states have passed laws aimed at making unauthorized state residents eligible for in-state tuition without violating this provision. This report provides a legal overview of cases involving immigrant access to higher education, as well as an analysis of the legality of state laws that make in-state tuition rates available to illegal aliens
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Sex Discrimination and the United States Supreme Court: Developments in the Law
[Excerpt] In its sex discrimination decisions, the United States Supreme Court not only has defined the applicability of the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution and the nondiscriminatory policies of federal statutes, but also has rejected the use of gender stereotypes and has continued to recognize the discriminatory effect of gender hostility in the workplace and in schools. This report focuses on sex discrimination challenges based on the equal protection guarantees of the Fourteenth and Fifth Amendments; the prohibition against employment discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and the prohibition against sex discrimination in education contained in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Although this report focuses on recent legal developments in each of these areas, this report also provides historical context by discussing selected landmark sex discrimination cases
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The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA): A Legal Overview
[Excerpt] This report provides an overview of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and discusses current legal and legislative developments. The ADEA, which prohibits employment discrimination against persons over the age of 40, was enacted “to promote employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age; to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment; [and] to help employers and workers find ways of meeting problems arising from the impact of age on employment.”
The ADEA, which applies to employers, labor organizations, and employment agencies, makes it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s age.” The statute not only applies to hiring, discharge, and promotion, but also prohibits discrimination in employee benefit plans such as health coverage and pensions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing the provisions of the ADEA.
The ADEA applies to employers who have “twenty or more employees for each working day in each of twenty or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.” A labor organization is covered by the ADEA if it “exists for the purpose ... of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours, or other terms or conditions of employment.” An employment agency and its agents are subject to the ADEA if the agency “regularly undertakes with or without compensation” the procurement of employees for an employer, other than an agency of the United States. The ADEA also covers congressional and most federal employees.
In addition, the Supreme Court recently handed down a series of decisions involving the ADEA during its 2007-2008 term, including Sprint/United Management Co. v. Mendelsohn; Federal Express Corp. v. Holowecki; Gomez-Perez v. Potter; Kentucky Retirement Systems v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; and Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory. Each of these cases is discussed below
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Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination in Employment: A Legal Analysis of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)
Introduced in various incarnations in every congressional session since the 103rd Congress, the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA; H.R. 1755/S. 815) would prohibit discrimination based on an individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity by public and private employers in hiring, discharge, compensation, and other terms and conditions of employment. The stated purpose of the legislation is “to address the history and persistent, widespread pattern of discrimination, including unconstitutional discrimination, on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity by private sector employers and local, State, and Federal Government employers,” as well as to provide effective remedies for such discrimination. Patterned on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the act would be enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
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Pay Equity Legislation
[Excerpt] The issue of pay equity has attracted substantial attention in recent Congresses. A number of measures, including bills that would provide additional remedies, mandate “equal pay for equivalent jobs,” or require studies on pay inequity, have been introduced in each of the last several congressional sessions. In the 111th Congress, similar legislation has been introduced, including the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 12/S. 182/S. 3772), the Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2151/S. 904), and the Title VII Fairness Act (S. 166). In addition, on January 29, 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (H.R. 11/S. 181). This legislation supersedes the 2007 Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc., by amending Title VII to clarify that the time limit for suing employers for pay discrimination begins each time they issue a paycheck. Although the House of Representatives passed both the Ledbetter legislation and the Paycheck Fairness Act as a combined package, the Senate did not combine the two bills and has not yet taken up the latter for a vote. Recently, however, Senator Reid reintroduced the Paycheck Fairness Act as S. 3772, and the bill has been placed on the Senate calendar
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Pay Equity: Legislative and Legal Developments
[Excerpt] The persistence of gender-based wage disparities—commonly referred to as the pay or wage gap—has been the subject of extensive debate and commentary. Congress first addressed the issue more than four decades ago in the Equal Pay Act of 1963, mandating an “equal pay for equal work” standard, and addressed it again the following year in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Collection of compensation data and elimination of male/female pay disparities are also integral to Labor Department enforcement of Executive Order 11246 (initially issued by President Lyndon Johnson), which mandates nondiscrimination and affirmative action by federal contractors. During the last several decades, initiatives to strengthen and expand current federal remedies available to victims of unlawful sex-based wage discrimination have been taken up in Congress.
This report begins by presenting data trends in earnings for male and female workers and by discussing explanations that have been offered for the differences in earnings. It next discusses the major laws directed at eliminating sex-based wage discrimination as well as relevant federal court cases. The report closes with a description of pay equity legislation that has been considered or enacted by Congress in recent years
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Unauthorized Alien Students, Higher Education, and In-State Tuition Rates: A Legal Analysis
Currently, federal law prohibits states from granting unauthorized aliens certain postsecondary educational benefits on the basis of state residence, unless equal benefits are made available to all U.S. citizens. This prohibition is commonly understood to apply to the granting of “in-state” residency status for tuition purposes. In the 110th Congress, several bills that would amend this federal law have been introduced (H.R. 1221, H.R. 1275, H.R. 1645, H.R. 4192, S. 774, S. 1348, S. 1639, and S. 2205). Meanwhile, some states have passed laws aimed at making unauthorized state residents eligible for in-state tuition without violating this provision. This report provides a legal overview of cases involving immigrant access to higher education, as well as an analysis of the legality of state laws that make in-state tuition rates available to illegal immigrants. For a policy analysis of this issue, see CRS Report RL33863, Unauthorized Alien Students: Issues and “DREAM Act” Legislation, by Andorra Bruno
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Military Recruitment on High School and College Campuses: A Policy and Legal Analysis
[Excerpt] In recent years, many academic institutions have enacted rules that protect individuals who are gay from discrimination on campus. As a result, some high schools and institutions of higher education have sought to bar military recruiters from their campuses and/or to eliminate Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs on campus in response to the military\u27s Don\u27t Ask, Don\u27t Tell (DADT) policy, which prohibits homosexual conduct by members of the armed services. These efforts, however, have largely been thwarted due to several laws that bar giving federal funds to campuses that block access for military recruiters.
These laws include the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, which amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) by requiring high schools that receive federal funds to provide certain student contact information to military recruiters upon request and to allow recruiters to have the same access to students as employers and colleges. This provision is different from similar Department of Defense (DOD) provisions that allow DOD to compile directory information on high school students for military recruitment purposes and that require colleges and universities that receive federal funds to give military recruiters the same access to students and campuses that is provided to other employers. Known as the Solomon Amendment, the latter provision was upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court in the 2006 case Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR).
This report describes the various laws regarding military recruitment on high school and college campuses, as well as discusses the policy and legal issues that they may raise. Meanwhile, several bills that would amend these military recruitment provisions have been introduced in the 111th Congress, including H.R. 1026, H.R. 1091, and S. 87
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Common Core State Standards and Assessments: Background and Issues
Over the last two decades, there has been interest in developing federal policies that focus on student outcomes in elementary and secondary education. Perhaps most prominently, the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB; P.L. 107-110), which amended and reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), marked a dramatic expansion of the federal government’s role in supporting standards-based instruction and test-based accountability, thereby increasing the federal government’s involvement in decisions that directly affect teaching and learning.
Under the ESEA, states are required to have standards in reading and mathematics for specified grade levels in order to receive funding under Title I-A of the ESEA. In response to this requirement, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have adopted and implemented standards that meet the requirements of the ESEA. Since the ESEA was last comprehensively reauthorized by NCLB, three major changes have taken place that have possibly played a role in the selection of reading and mathematics standards by states: (1) the development and release of the Common Core State Standards; (2) the Race to the Top (RTT) State Grant competition and RTT Assessment Grants competition; and (3) the ESEA flexibility package provided by ED to states with approved applications. As of August 2014, 43 states, the District of Columbia, 4 outlying areas, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) had at some point adopted the Common Core State Standards. Indiana and Oklahoma recently became the first states to adopt and subsequently discontinue use of the Common Core State Standards. South Carolina has indicated that the Common Core State Standards will be fully implemented for the 2014-2015 school year but will be replaced by new standards in the 2015-2016 school year.
This report examines each of the aforementioned changes and discusses how they are interrelated. More specifically, it provides (1) background information on current law, (2) a discussion of the development of the Common Core State Standards and state adoption of the standards, (3) an analysis of the RTT State Grant competition and how the structure of the grant application process may have incentivized state adoption of the Common Core State Standards, (4) an examination of the RTT Assessment Grants competition and the federal funds provided to support the development of assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards, and (5) an analysis of the ESEA flexibility package and how the conditions that states had to meet to receive waivers of ESEA accountability provisions may have incentivized state implementation of the Common Core State Standards. This report also examines prohibitions in the ESEA and the General Education Provisions Act related to standards, assessments, and curriculum. Additionally, it includes a brief discussion of the relationship between teacher and school leader evaluation systems that are being developed by states and the Common Core State Standards.
Finally, the report examines issues that have arisen in relation to the Common Core State Standards, including the following:
• whether states were incentivized by the Administration to adopt and implement the Common Core State Standards;
• whether state adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards could result in a national assessment and national standards;
• whether state adoption and implementation of the Common Core State Standards could lead to the development of a national curriculum;
•possible issues that may need to be addressed if a state chooses to discontinue its use of the Common Core State Standards;
• possible issues related to teacher evaluation and the Common Core State Standards;
• possible technology issues related to implementation of the Common Core State Standards; and
• possible issues related to the long-term maintenance of the Common Core State Standards
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Homosexuals and the U.S. Military: Current Issues
[Excerpt] In 1993, new laws and regulations pertaining to homosexuals and U.S. military service came into effect reflecting a compromise in policy. This compromise, colloquially referred to as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” holds that the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion which are the essence of military capability. Service members are not to be asked about nor allowed to discuss their homosexuality. This compromise notwithstanding, the issue has remained politically contentious.
Prior to the 1993 compromise, the number of individuals discharged for homosexuality was generally declining. Since that time, the number of discharges for homosexual conduct has generally increased until recently.
Constitutional challenges to the former and current military policies regarding homosexuals followed in the wake of the new 1993 laws and regulations. Based on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick that there is no fundamental right to engage in consensual homosexual sodomy, the courts have uniformly held that the military may discharge a service member for overt homosexual conduct. However, the legal picture was complicated by the Court’s 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overruled Bowers by declaring unconstitutional a Texas law that prohibited sexual acts between same sex couples. In addition, unsettled legal questions remain as to whether a discharge based solely on a statement that a service member is homosexual transgresses constitutional limits. Meanwhile, efforts to allow individuals of the same sex to marry legally appear unlikely to affect the DOD policy in the near term, since such individuals are barred from serving in the military, although court challenges are possible.
In recent years, many academic institutions have enacted rules that protect homosexuals from discrimination on campus. As a result, colleges, universities, and even high schools have sought to bar military recruiters from their campuses and/or to eliminate Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs on campus because of the DOD policy on homosexuals in the military. At the same time, legislation has been enacted that bars giving federal funds to campuses that block access for military recruiters. On March 6, 2006, the Supreme Court reversed a federal appeals court ruling in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR), and upheld the constitutionality of the Solomon Amendment, which prohibits certain federal funding to higher educational institutions that deny access by military recruiters to their students equal to that provided to other employers. On November 14, 2006, the San Francisco school board voted 4-2 to phase out Junior ROTC over two years. That phase-out was later delayed by an additional year.
This report will be updated as events warrant
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