in loco parentis

[Latin in locō parentis : in, in + locō, ablative of locus, place + parentis, genitive of parēns, parent.]

[Latin, In the place of a parent.] The legal doctrine under which an individual assumes parental rights, duties, and obligations without going through the formalities of legal adoption.

In loco parentis is a legal doctrine describing a relationship similar to that of a parent to a child. It refers to an individual who assumes parental status and responsibilities for another individual, usually a young person, without formally adopting that person. For example, legal guardians are said to stand in loco parentis with respect to their wards, creating a relationship that has special implications for insurance and workers' compensation law. By far the most common usage of in loco parentis relates to teachers and students. For hundreds of years, the English common-law concept shaped the rights and responsibilities of public school teachers: until the late nineteenth century, their legal authority over students was as broad as that of parents. Changes in U.S. education, concurrent with a broader reading by courts of the rights of students, began bringing the concept into disrepute by the 1960s.

Taking root in colonial American schools, in loco parentis was an idea derived from English common law. The colonists borrowed it from the English ideal of schools having not only educational but also moral responsibility for students. With this duty went the equivalent of parental authority. The idea especially suited the puritanical values of the colonists, and after the American Revolution, it persisted in elementary and high schools, colleges, and universities. The judiciary respected it: like their English counterparts, U.S. courts in the nineteenth century were unwilling to interfere when students brought grievances, particularly in the area of rules, discipline, and expulsion.

In 1866, for instance, one court stated, "A discretionary power has been given, … [and] we have no more authority to interfere than we have to control the domestic discipline of a father in his family" (People ex rel. Pratt v. Wheaton College, 40 Ill. 186). Well into the twentieth century, courts permitted broad authority to schools and showed hostility to the claims of student plaintiffs. In dismissing a claim by a restaurant owner against a college, the Kentucky Supreme Court found that a college's duties under in loco parentis gave it the power to forbid students to patronize the restaurant (Gott v. Berea College, 156 Ky. 376, 161 S.W. 204 [1913]).

Two important shifts in society and law diminished the effect of the doctrine. One was the evolution of educational standards. Beginning in the late 1800s and advancing rapidly during the mid-1900s, the increasing secularization of schools brought an emphasis on practical education over moral instruction. At a slower rate, courts adapted to this change, according greater rights to students than were previously recognized. This trend began during the turbulent era of social change in the 1960s.

The first to benefit were students in higher education, through rulings such as the landmark Dixon v. Alabama State Board of Education, 294 F.2d 150 (5th Cir. 1961). In Dixon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit extended due process rights to students at tax-supported colleges, ruling that the Constitution "requires notice and some opportunity for hearing" before students can be expelled for misconduct. After Dixon, courts largely abandoned in loco parentis in favor of contract law for adjudicating disputes between students and their institutions. Partly in reaction to free speech movements, other changes came as courts recognized that students at public colleges and universities were entitled to full enjoyment of their First and Fourth Amendment rights.

Over the next decade, public school students received greater recognition of their rights, too. In ruling that high school students could not be expelled for wearing black armbands to protest the Vietnam War, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 1969 that students do not "shed their constitutional rights … at the schoolhouse gate" (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503, 89 S. Ct. 733, 21 L. Ed. 2d 731). In 1975, it held in Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565, 95 S. Ct. 729, 42 L. Ed. 2d 725, that the suspension of high school students for alleged disruptive or disobedient conduct required some sort of notice of charges and a prior hearing.

But the underlying premise of in loco parentis did not disappear completely from public schools. Instead, the Supreme Court limited students' rights based on what it found appropriate for children in school. In 1977, it held that the disciplinary paddling of public school students was not a cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment (Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 97 S. Ct. 1401, 51 L. Ed. 2d 711). Public school students have also traditionally enjoyed less protection of their First and Fourth Amendment rights. Recognizing the duty of schools to safeguard students, the Court in 1995 permitted high schools to conduct random urinalysis of student athletes even without prior suspicion (Vernonia School District v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 115 S. Ct. 2386, 132 L. Ed. 2d 564).

The progression from the courts' early acceptance of in loco parentis to a broader recognition of students' rights transformed U.S. education. Students in public universities gained the most from this shift in philosophy and law, but students in high school also earned recognition of their due process rights. The judicial revolution that began with Dixon did not give constitutional protection to the rights of private school students, who are distinct under the law from public school students.

In the 1980s, new issues involving the in loco parentis doctrine arose for colleges and universities. Victims of campus crime insisted that these institutions owed a duty to provide safe campuses to students. The schools, noting that the doctrine of in loco parentis was no longer upheld, resisted the idea because of the increased liability that would accrue to them. At the same time, many institutions enacted controversial rules governing so-called hate speech, and these codes returned them in some measure to the days when they tightly regulated student behavior.

See: Children's Rights; Colleges and Universities; Guardian and Ward; Infants; Juvenile Law; Schools and School Districts.

In the place of a parent

The adverb has one meaning:

Meaning #1: in place of the parents

Caring for Children

At Home

Parents, Extended family, Babysitting, Au Pair, Nanny

Outside the Home

Daycare, Childminder, Playgroup

Educational Settings

Early childhood education, Preschool, Nursery School, Kindergarten

Institutions and Standards

Child protection, In loco parentis, Minor (law)

Related

Orphanage, Child Abuse, Family law

v • d • e

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

The term in loco parentis, Latin for "in the place of a parent" or "instead of a parent,"^[1] refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. Originally derived from British common law, it is applied in two separate areas of the law.

First, it allows institutions such as colleges and schools to act in the best interests of the students as they see fit, although not allowing what would be considered violations of the students' civil liberties.^[1]

Second, this doctrine can provide a non-biological parent to be given the legal rights and responsibilities of a biological parent if they have held themselves out as the parent. ^[2]

The in loco parentis doctrine is distinct from the doctrine of parens patriae, the psychological parent doctrine, and adoption.^[3] In the United States, the parental liberty doctrine imposes constraints upon the operation of the in loco parentis doctrine.^[3]

Contents 1 In United States law 2 Primary and secondary education 2.1 Criticism of the Tinker doctrine by Justice Clarence Thomas 3 Higher education 4 References

In United States law

Courts in the United States primarily apply the doctrine of in loco parentis to educational institutions.

Primary and secondary education

The first major limitation to this came in the U.S. Supreme Court case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1942), in which the court ruled that students cannot be forced to salute the American flag. More prominent change came in the 1960s and 1970s in such cases as Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), when the Supreme Court decided that "conduct by the student, in class or out of it, which for any reason - whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior - materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is, of course, not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech."

Many provisions of in loco parentis have been upheld over time. New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) upheld the search of lockers and other personal space while on school property, indicating that students are not afforded the same rights as adults in other settings and stating that while acting in loco parentis, school officials are still representatives of the state. In Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier (1987) the Supreme Court similarly ruled that "First Amendment rights of students in the public schools are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings, and must be applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment" and schools may censor school-sponsored publications (such as a school newspaper) if content is "...inconsistent with its basic educational mission." Other student issues, such as school dress codes, have not yet been tested in the Supreme Court.

Private institutions are given significantly more authority over their students than public ones, and are generally allowed to arbitrarily dictate rules. In the Kentucky State Supreme Court case Gott v. Berea College, it was upheld that a "college or university may prescribe requirements for admission and rules for the conduct of its students, and one who enters as a student implicitly agrees to conform to such rules of government", while publicly funded institutions could not claim the same ability.

Criticism of the Tinker doctrine by Justice Clarence Thomas

Justice Clarence Thomas has argued that Tinker’s ruling contradicted “the traditional understanding of the judiciary’s role in relation to public schooling,” and ignored the history of public education (127 S.Ct. 2634). He believed the judiciary’s role to determine whether students have freedom of expression was limited by in loco parentis. He cited Lander v. Seaver (1986) which held that in loco parentis allowed schools to punish student expression that the school or teacher believed contradicted the school’s interests and educational goals. This ruling declared that the only restriction the doctrine imposed were acts of legal malice or acts that caused permanent injury. Neither of these were the case with Tinker.

Higher education

Though in loco parentis continues to apply to primary and secondary education in the U.S., application of the concept has largely disappeared in higher education. However, this was not always the case.

Prior to the 1960s, undergraduates were subject to many restrictions on their private lives. Women were generally subject to curfews as early as 10:00, and dormitories were usually entirely one-sex. Some universities expelled students—especially female students—who were somehow "morally" undesirable. Some universities even insisted that a male and female student sitting on the same chair have at least three feet on the ground at all times. More importantly, universities saw fit to restrict freedom of speech on campus, often forbidding organizations dealing with "off-campus" issues from organizing, demonstrating, or otherwise acting on campus. These restrictions were severely criticized by the student movements of the 1960s, and the Free Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley formed partly on account of them, inspiring students elsewhere to step up their opposition. ^[4]

The landmark 1961 case Dixon v. Alabama was the beginning of the end for in loco parentis in U.S. higher education. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found that Alabama State College could not summarily expel students without due process.^[5]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Law.com Law Dictionary - in loco parentis". Law.com. http://dictionary.law.com/default2.asp?typed=in+loco+parentis&type=1&submit1.x=86&submit1.y=20&submit1=Look+up. Retrieved 2008-09-03. 
2. ^ An example of family law in loco parentis
3. ^ ^{a b} In Loco Parentis -- Quaqua Society
4. ^ Anderson, Terry H. (1996). The Movement and the Sixties. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195104578. 
5. ^ Hoover, Eric (5 September 2008). "‘Animal House’ at 30: O Bluto, Where Art Thou?". The Chronicle of Higher Education 55 (2): 34–35. 

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