Compulsory school attendance constitutes state custody over children.
Evidence
White’s dissent is the most precise articulation of what is wrong with the majority’s analysis. The Eighth Amendment exists because the state cannot be trusted to calibrate its own use of force against vulnerable persons in its custody. Children in public schools are in state custody in the relevant sense: they are compelled to be there by compulsory attendance laws, they cannot leave without permission, and the school officials have authority over them that the children cannot resist. The openness of the school environment does not change this; it only means the custody is less total than a prison. Less total custody is not no custody. — , The Rod and the Child, 9430
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the chapter’s closing point that dissents are ‘votes in waiting’ that get cited by later courts. — connects to: Children constitute a political constituency constitutionally unable to enforce their own rights — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 10130; The Constitution protects prisoners more than schoolchildren from beatings. — , The Rod and the Child: A Global History…, 9428
Related
Broader Connections
- Children constitute a political constituency constitutionally unable to enforce their own rights
#expands(0.60) — , The Rod and the Child, 10130 - The Constitution protects prisoners more than schoolchildren from beatings.
#corroborates(0.55) — , The Rod and the Child, 9428