Washburn Law Journal
Editor's Note
Volume 44, No. 1 (Fall 2004)
In 2004, Washburn University School of Law, along with the rest of Topeka and the nation, celebrated the 50th anniversary of the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education and the beginning of public school desegregation. Professor Mildred Wigfall Robinson's 2004 Foulston Siefkin Lecture honored the promise of Brown and recognized that today that promise remains unfulfilled. Professor Robinson authors the lead article in the Washburn Law Journal, entitled Fulfilling Brown's Legacy: Bearing the Costs of Realizing Equality. In it, Professor Robinson argues that inadequate school funding remains a barrier to complete desegregation. Further, she suggests how state fiscal policies can have an extraordinary impact on providing an adequate education for all students. Professor Robinson's lecture inspired the three other articles in this issue.
In Brown at 50: Reconstructing Brown's Promise, Professor Taunya Lovell Banks articulates the rationale behind integration and equal education and proposes alternative means to achieve both. Further, she suggests that the failure to achieve racial integration may be a result of how the goals of integration are defined and measured. Professor Harold McDougall, in his article School Desegregation or Affirmative Action?, discusses the resegregation of public schools in the fifty years since the Brown decision. Professor McDougall identifies sources of the resegregation including special education, the use of tracking systems, and a fear of school violence. He proposes a dialog intensive community-based forum for achieving integrated public schools. In Bearing the Cost of Racial Equality: Brown and the Myth of the Equality/Efficiency Trade Off, Professor Steven A. Ramirez contends that fully realizing racial equity could provide substantial macroeconomic benefits.
Finally, six student pieces are included in the issue. Vincent Cox argues the all appellate opinions should be published and treated as equally binding in his note, Freeing Unpublished Opinions from Exile. Ryan Vincent suggests in his note, No Child Left Behind, Only the Arts and Humanities, that the federal No Child Left Behind Act disproportionately burdens low-income schools by forcing them to eliminate the arts, resulting in unequal education in violation of Brown's mandate. Joletta Friesen authors a comment regarding the admission of prior crimes evidence in child molestation cases in Kansas. Roarke Gordon explores the creation of probable cause by association. Next, Jenny Williams discusses the disappearance of the insanity plea in Kansas in her comment. Finally, Melinda Young contends that Florida's ban on homosexual adoptions violates the Constitution.
S.L.S.
