One of the first lessons I impart on law students is the importance of being careful and precise in their choice of words as would-be lawyers. After all, our interpretation of the law can hinge on a single word or even the placement (or lack) of a comma. So, I caution my first year law […]

If the 2018 strike was about guaranteeing our children access to quality teachers, the 2019 strike is even more foundational—it is about guaranteeing that quality public schools remain free and accessible to all children rather than a select few. It is altogether fitting that this year’s strike occurs on the same week forty years ago […]

No more than a day after it ended, the West Virginia teacher strike was heralded as “a possible catalyst for similar actions in Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Arizona; a harbinger of a new red-state populism to challenge the reactionary populism of Donald Trump; a resurrection of the glory days of labor politics; and, ultimately, a rare victory for […]

  Well, you know, some of us want to change the world West Virginia teachers have been striking for seven school days to vindicate the constitutional rights of their students. They have braved the picket line in the cold rain even as some officials have threatened to sue them. Their strike or work stoppage is […]

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey stated last week that West Virginia public school teachers “impending work stoppage” was “unlawful.”  The support for this claim apparently rested on a 1990 case related to a prior teacher strike.  The court explained: “In short, we decline to alter the common law judicially. Public employees have no right […]

Much was made over the past few days that the teacher strike has been unlawful. The attorney general was keen to remind state agencies repeatedly that his office stood ready to pursue legal action against the teachers. To be sure, during the last statewide teacher strike in 1990s, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled that, […]