United States Supreme Court decisions that have shaped K--12 education in America, 1972--2004

This mixed method descriptive study examined emerging trends in U.S. Supreme Court K--12 education cases between 1972 and 2004. The multilevel research produced outcome analyses of lawsuits by students, employees and others; court case outcomes; majority opinion author; and court of emergence within the Federal Judicial Circuits. This research further sought to identify U.S. Supreme Court decisions by types of actions adjudicated during the 1972--2004 time period; case outcomes by lawsuit categorizations; and discernable historic trends.; The study consisted of 96 cases with 108 predominant issues. The quantitative longitudinal analyses revealed 61.5% of the total cases represented lawsuits by students. This was more than five times the number of lawsuits initiated by employees, representing 12.5% of the cases; and more than twice the number of lawsuits initiated by others, or 26.0%. The overall decisions conclusively indicated 52.8% of the 108 issues decided completely favored students, employees or others; and 33.0% completely favored school authorities. The most frequently litigated issues by or on behalf of students were under the discrimination, equal opportunity and sexual harassment; church and state; and special education subcategories.; A split-decade analysis revealed a "seesaw" trend in overall issues decided. The majority of issues decided favored students, employees or others between 1972--1974, 1975--1979, 1985--1989, and 1990--1994. The time periods favoring school authorities were 1980--1984, 1995--1999, and 2000--2004.; The qualitative analysis resulted in a three-dimensional coding analysis. This analysis included context coding (general case category), situational coding (reasoning summary), and thematic coding (emergent legal theme) for lawsuits by on behalf of students, employees, or others. The legal holding and rule for each issue or grouping of issues resulted in an emergent legal theme and the situational coding resulted in a summarization of the United States Supreme Court's major reasoning.