The Full Collection of Justice in Schools Case Studies

Going Public

Snapshot: Seeking to offer enrollment to students from a local urban center, suburban Eastport Public Schools faces pushback. Community members express concern for the safety of incoming students of color, citing a lack of explicit equity training for...

What Would You Do?: Seeing Green

Snapshot: This second episode of a video podcast series, produced in partnership with the Ethical Schools podcast, includes a dramatized version of our case "Seeing Green" along with a discussion of the case led by Professor Meira Levinson. Should science...

The (De)Merits of Discipline

Snapshot: A teacher in a charter school must decide how to respond when she witnesses a colleague harshly reprimanding a student in class; while her colleague’s behavior isn’t out of line with the school’s strict discipline code, she herself relies more...

Keeping It Private: Challenges of Boarding School Mentorship

Snapshot: At an independent boarding school, a development officer who also serves as a mentor in the dorm must balance competing values as she decides what to do after witnessing her mentee engaged in sexual activity with a classmate. School policy...

A Uniform Decision: Community and Commemoration in Public School

Snapshot: A principal in Australia considers how to approach an upcoming holiday commemorating a World War I battle, given the large number of both defence veterans and asylum seekers from war-torn nations in his community. How should schools celebrate...

No Laughing Matter: Can Showing Religiously Sensitive Cartoons in the Classroom Ever Be Justified?

Snapshot: In England, Tate Academy, part of a chain of schools in a Multi-Academy Trust serving a sizable Muslim population, faces growing Islamophobia among its largely White, non-Muslim student body. When graffiti inspired by the Charlie Hedbo cartoons...

Remote Control: Blurred Boundaries in the Zoom Classroom

Snapshot: As schools across the United States rely on virtual instruction for some—or even all—instructional time, they continue to grapple with dilemmas initially raised during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this fictional case, members of a fourth-grade...

Something in the Water: Controversial Issues and Competitive Debate

Snapshot: In Memphis, TN, debate coaches are surprised when the school district informs them that they’re not allowed to use national resources that tackle questions of environmental racism by examining lead in the water supply. While the district wishes...

Basic Education for All: The Politics of Implementing 100% Transition from Primary School to Secondary School in Kenya

Snapshot: In 2020, the Kenyan government declared that secondary school would be mandatory for all—effective immediately. In response to pushback about the impracticality of immediate 100% transition, the Cabinet Secretary for Education defiantly declared...

Course Correction: Teaching Critical Consciousness in an Anti-CRT State

Snapshot: Facing community pushback and a new state law prohibiting teaching “critical race theory,” a middle school principal must decide whether to run a critical consciousness course for students. While student polling shows that the school climate has...

A Qualified Disaster: Allocating Student Grades During COVID-19

Snapshot: When national examinations in England were canceled during the Covid-19 pandemic, policy makers were tasked with deciding the fairest way to allocate student grades in their place. This case explores the ethical trade-offs involved in that...

School Choice in Hong Kong: Peking Ducks or Rich Expats?

Snapshot: A group of parents in Hong Kong considers which type of schooling will best prepare their children for the future. The local schools and international schools offer benefits and drawbacks that will impact their children’s lives now and for many...