NC Education Lawyer Blog

As a student-side higher education attorney, I view campus controversies through two lenses at once: law and institutional responsibility. Not every harmful editorial choice is unlawful. Not every offensive joke creates liability. Nonetheless, universities and the organizations operating within them do not get to ignore the legal and policy environment in which their speech lands. That is why two April Fools pieces published by  The Daily Tar Heel  deserve serious criticism.

As a student-side education attorney in North Carolina, I hear a version of the same story over and over again. A student is harassed, excluded, denied support, or discriminated against at school. The family reports it. The district minimizes the problem or delays action. And the parents are left searching for someone, anyone, who can step in and enforce the law. For decades, families often turned to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) when local sy