As a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a masterwork of Thomas Jefferson, the "Academical Village" at the heart of the University of Virginia has long attracted the attention of visitors and scholars alike. Yet today Jefferson’s original structures make up only a small fraction of a campus comprising over 1,600 acres. The Law School at the University of Virginia traces the history of one of the eight original schools of the University to study the development of the University Grounds over nearly two hundred years. In this book, Philip Mills Herrington relates the remarkable story of how the Law School and the University have used architecture to reconcile a desire for progress with a veneration for the past. In addition to providing a fascinating history of one of the oldest and most influential law schools in the United States, Herrington offers a valuable case study of the ways in which American universities have constructed, altered, and enhanced the built environment in response to the ever-changing demands of higher education and campus life.

How the United States can provide equal educational opportunity to every child The United States Supreme Court closed the courthouse door to federal litigation to narrow educational funding and opportunity gaps in schools when it ruled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez in 1973 that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to education. Rodriguez pushed reformers back to the state courts where they have had some success in securing reforms to school funding systems through education and equal protection clauses in state constitutions, but far less success in changing the basic structure of school funding in ways that would ensure access to equitable and adequate funding for schools. Given the limitations of state school funding litigation, education reformers continue to seek new avenues to remedy inequitable disparities in educational opportunity and achievement, including recently returning to federal court. This book is the first comprehensive examination of three issues regarding a federal right to education: why federal intervention is needed to close educational opportunity and achievement gaps; the constitutional and statutory legal avenues that could be employed to guarantee a federal right to education; and, the scope of what a federal right to education should guarantee. A Federal Right to Education provides a timely and thoughtful analysis of how the United States could fulfill its unmet promise to provide equal educational opportunity and the American Dream to every child, regardless of race, class, language proficiency, or neighborhood.