May It Please the Court

The fascinating sequel to the bestselling book-and-tape set: actual Supreme Court oral arguments on the constitutional rights of students. This sequel to the bestselling May It Please the Court focuses on Supreme Court cases involving students' and teachers' constitutional rights. In many towns and cities, public schools become the arena in which conflicts that begin in homes, churches, and meeting halls are fought. Issues involving prayer, newspaper and library censorship, political protest, drug testing, illegal aliens, and corporal punishment spill into classrooms and result in lawsuits. This new set of landmark "school rights" cases features narrated tape recordings of sixteen actual oral arguments made before the Supreme Court, together with a hardcover book of transcripts, excerpts from the Court's rulings, and photographs of the students and teachers involved. Featuring nationally known figures, including attorney Kenneth Starr and Justices Thurgood Marshall and Earl Warren, these recordings offer an unrivaled view of the Supreme Court in action and an unparalleled opportunity to explore some of the most explosive constitutional debates of our time. Includes: * Four ninety-minute cassettes: Edited, live recordings of the oral arguments and questioning from sixteen cases--including twelve never before published--with narration by Peter Irons identifying the speakers and putting the arguments in context. * 320-page hardcover book: Transcriptions of the arguments, excerpts from the opinions and the key dissents, and photos of the students who took their cases all the way to the Supreme Court. Cases include: Abington School District v. Schempp (school prayer) Tinker v. Des Moines (wearing black armband in school) Cleveland Board of Education v. LaFleur (mandatory maternity leave for teachers)* Milliken v. Bradley (busing for racial balance)* Goss v. Lopez (due process hearings for suspended students)* Ingraham v. Wright, School Principal (corporal punishment)* Plyler v. Doe (barring "illegal alien" students)* Island Trees Board of Education v. Pico (book censorship in school libraries)* New Jersey v. T. L. O. (searching student belongings)* Bethel School District v. Fraser ("vulgar" speech)* Edwards v. Aguillard (evolution versus creationism in schools) Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (censoring high-school newspapers) Westside Board of Education v. Mergens (religious clubs)* Lee v. Weisman (school prayer)* Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District (sign-language interpreter)* Vernonia School District v. Acton (drug testing for athletes)* *never before published

Peter Irons is a professor of political science and director of the Earl Warren Bill of Rights Project at the University of California, San Diego.