Child Law:  Current Issues - Professor Schlam

This seminar will survey the nature, principles and practice of child law through a discussion of cases, statutes, and several films shown during the semester. [Reading materials to be announced.] Individual student research and writing projects will be required, resulting in senior writing requirement papers of customary length and quality on current "cutting edge" issues or topics in the field. Typical examples of potential areas for class discussion or potential topics for papers are:

(1) family matters, e.g., the rights of third parties in custody disputes: standing and “best interests;” establishing the liability of "private" foster-care-givers or public child welfare agencies; reforming the foster care system; responding to the  runaway” (“throwaway”) problem; “battered” or abused children; the commitment of children to mental institutions; "status offenses;" vicarious parental liability; emancipation; issues in international adoptions.

(2) school matters, e.g., disciplinary policies; sexual harassment; student rights of privacy, press, expression and religious freedom; educational reform; home schooling; and school financing; and

(3) juvenile court or police matters, e.g., the unique treatment of children in the juvenile justice system as compared to adults in the criminal justice system; the ongoing debate over whether “juvenile courts” should even continue to exist at all; trends in diversion, mediation, and disposition in delinquency cases; the trend toward increasing the statutory bases for transferring or “waiving” children to adult court; the problematic “right” to "confront" abused child witnesses; Fourth Amendment standards given Juvenile Court jurisdiction; and recent reforms in police-child interaction, including practices of interrogation.