High School forced labor for grades? I have a friend in a high school computer science course in Texas. This is a course required for graduation and is not a volunteer thing. Apparently, the teacher is having the students develop an official app that the school intends to eventually use. This app deals with collecting and maintaining personal information about students in this particular school, as well as information about what classes they are enrolled in. They are not paying the students to do this. My friend says his entire course grade will be based on this app. I'm an industry professional programmer, and this sounds extremely illegal to me, for a number of reasons, the first being that inexperienced programmers (kids) are not only being given access to protected information about minors (and thus is extremely likely to be exploitable/leakable), but also that they are being asked to work for the school without pay via threat of not graduating. I looked briefly at the Texas child labor laws but they only seem to cover willful paid employment, which this is clearly not. Is this legal?
Various elements could be legal, or not. For example, it is legal to require students to do things in order to pass a class. It is legal to require a student to write a program for a course (entirely, or in part). It is legal for a teacher to give a &quot;group grade&quot;. It is not clear whether it is legal to require the student to assign copyright or license to the teacher / school – it may be legal to require a student to pay for their class, and copyright transfer might be valuable consideration for such a contract (assuming that there is a contractual relation at all as opposed to a statutory mandate – e.g. &quot;high school&quot;). If this is a public school, you can't make students pay for a mandatory class, therefore you cannot require assignment of copyright. It is very probably illegal for the student to access the educational records of other students, but the app could be developed with dummy data.
You are in general correct, KBurchfiel. A code snippet such as import math; or For i := 1 to 10 print i; has no originality, and is not protected by copyright. A post eplaining the meaning an usage of such a snippet might well be original enough to be protected by US copyright, indeed it probably would. But the code on its own would not be. Anyone could read such a post, and if s/he understood it, use the code snippet and not be in violation of copyright, not compelled to place the entire program in which such a snippet was used under a CC-=BY-SA license. The creative commons people would prefer that a CC license not be applied to a publication that is not protected by copyright, and if it is so applied it is legally meaningless. But they have no legal way to enforce such a preference. A stack exchange post that consisted of nothing but such an uncopyrightable code snippet, with no explanation r discussion, might well be downvoted or even deleted. But that is a matter of site policy on what is a useful answer, not a matter of copyright. Using an excerpt from a copyrighted work so small that the excerpt alone would be uncopyrightable, would probably be fair use under US law, and might well be fair dealing in UK law. Something that is fair use does not compel the reuser to abide by the terms of a CC license, because those terms apply only when the content could not be reused without the CC license's permission. However, a code snippet does not need to be very much more original than the above examples before it becomes copyrightable. Whether it can be used via fair use rather than via the CC-BY-SA license is a very fact-based decision (the usual four-factor analysis is spelled out in 17 USC 107).. But if the snippet can be rewritten to express the same concepts but in a different expression, then there is no copyright issue, and again the CC license will not apply. If the snippet is complex and original enough to be copyrightable (a fairly low bar) and it is re-used unchanged, under conditions where fair use does not apply, then the CC-BY-SA license's terms must be complied with for the use to be legal. That is several &quot;IFs&quot; however. The exact details of a specific case will matter in such cases, there is not one rule for all snippets, all posts, or all programs.
You have a third option: Sue the district for violating state or local law. There are lots of recent news stories about people doing just this and winning. The US Constitution Can't Help You: The school district is not violating your constitutional rights by installing lights at the stadium. The only constitutional protection remotely connected to your situation is the "takings clause" of the 5th Amendment. It says, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Unfortunately, the "takings clause" only applies if there is a "taking." A "taking" is generally understood to be exactly that -- you lose your property. The loss can be literal -- the government takes title to your house and turns it into a football field or freeway on-ramp -- or figurative -- the disturbance from the football field or on-ramp is so pervasive that your property becomes worthless. Since having the lights on will not destroy the value of your property, the takings clause does not apply to you. As one Justice said in a related case, the lesson here is simple: "the federal Constitution does not prohibit everything that is intensely undesirable." State or Local Law Might Help You: Even though you don't have a constitutional claim, depending on what state and city you live in, you may have a claim under state or local law. (These might be statutes, regulations, ordinances, or even your state constitution.) For example, in 2010 a group of home owners in Atherton, California who lived near the local high school sued when the school announced plans to install stadium lights. The suit claimed the lights violated local height limits, and that the night games would violate noise ordinances. The suit, plus a savvy pr campaign, got the school to agree to limits on night games. Atherton is not alone. All the way across the country, in Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbors upset about stadium lights sued and got an agreement about the use of lights. A search using high+school+lights+neighbors+sue turns up plenty of other examples. You will have to talk to a local attorney to find out what state or local laws you can use.
Without knowing the specifics on Florida Goverment's regulations, the term Umbrella School is used to designate school like organizations that over see multiple homeschoolers and that they are meeting state educational expectations. Often they will hold events which will allow homeschoolers to compete in school sports as well as set curriculums (sometimes), and field trips and social events (A stereotype of Home School Students is that they are poorly socialized compared to those who attend traditional public or private schools.). They should meet legal qualifications, but it's a bare minimum at best. I would recommend calling a local school administration office for best guidance, but saying Home School (Florida Unschoolers Umbrella School) would likely cover your bases. I'm sure you're not the first person to ask this question.
I am wondering if anyone here could say if it is worth going into law, particularly when coming from a good law school (and assuming I have a real interest in the subject and enjoy research, etc.). Is it true that the profession is contracting, and that it could be hard to find a decent job? Is there decent upward mobility in the profession, or should one expect a sub-60-70k salary for many many years after school? Is there anyone here that thinks not going into law (ie pursing a Ph.D. instead) is a better choice? I went into a top law school (the University of Michigan, ranked #8 when I matriculated, graduated in the top 25%, cum laude, with an editorship of a law journal under my belt) with almost the same academic background (undergraduate math major) and a similar LSAT score to you. It was a somewhat easier choice for me. I was a solid A- math student, but didn't have the chops and talent to pursue a PhD in math and make an academic career out of it, even though I was something of a math prodigy. I also didn't have the passion for it. I saw that I was spending my free time focused on the humanities, social sciences and campus politics and journalism, rather than on math (although tutoring and grading paid my way for all of my personal and living expenses). A legal job definitely provides a secure lifetime of decent employment, can be intellectually challenging in some subfields (other kinds of practices not so much), and provides a certain amount of interpersonal interaction and immediate, easily understood relevance that you can't secure as an academic mathematician. It isn't that hard to find a decent job for a graduate of a top law school, and the profession is not meaningfully contracting. Indeed, almost no occupation has been less impacted economically by the pandemic. Post-law school compensation is bimodal. A minority (maybe 30-40%) start at large law firms (sometimes after a judicial clerkship) and make very good money (low 100s) right off the bat. The rest get decent middle class jobs at first. Most, from both routes, end up eventually self-employed in small and medium sized law firms, although a lucky few (maybe 5%-10%) end up as partners in big law firms and a similar share end up as senior civil servants. The problem is that the instincts you learn getting as far into math as you have are not very advantageous to a Big Law career, which places a huge premium on social skills, upper middle class to upper class social capital, and hard work as what amounts to being a super-bureaucrat at relatively menial details for long uncreative hours that are only dimly connected to results. A lawyer needs to be smart, but being a &quot;genius&quot; intellectually doesn't provide much marginal benefit. Most economically successful lawyers have quite narrow and specialized practices that present fewer intellectual challenges as you mass produce the same kind of work over and over, and lawyers derive a lot of their income from their capacity to market their services effectively to the affluent and the powerful. Also, a lot of your compensation in law is basically for your marketing, for taking on highly stressful responsibility, and for dealing with very unpleasant situations. It often isn't the most enjoyable life style unless you have a very particular type A, competitive, extraverted personality who understands people extremely well but isn't academically oriented. Corporate law, in particular, values your interpersonal skills very highly and doesn't place much of a premium on your intellectual legal knowledge and research ability. Those things are factors of production in corporate law but they aren't what leads to success there and are often pawned off on junior associates who never have a shot at making partner. I could have done better economically (I basically took what amounted to a mommy track for various reasons), but didn't understand the profession, or what the work involved, or what was critical to get ahead at the time and in my early career and had other priorities and a set of values and world views ill suited to the work. If I was doing it all over again, I would have chosen a quantitative heavy but non-math PhD path (maybe Economics or physics or operations research or statistics) or would have become an actuary, rather than becoming a lawyer. I love knowing the things that I know because I went to law school (which I loved) and because I've have an incredibly diverse (although not terribly well paying) legal practice for 25 years. I was a professor (in a gradate estate planning program for financial planners) for a while, and it was the best job I've ever had and I still enjoy teaching a lot. I also spend lots of time in math related hobbies to exercise and enjoy math related talent that I have but can't use very often at work. If I were in your shoes, with publications already and an acceptance in a top graduate math PhD program, I would definitely take that path. It is a field within academia with a healthy trend line of stability or growth within academia, and being a professor (which you have a viable shot at doing) is a wonderful way to live. There are fewer job seekers per open position for PhDs in math than in most academic disciplines. I've never met a math prof whose regretted his choice (and I know many, having grown up all my life as a child of a professor and a college administrator in a small college down and having been a math major).
No. I can't give a more detailed answer without reference to a specific statute. But just about every state anti-bullying statute in the U.S. restricts the definition to...well, bullying. There is a good summary of state bullying and cyberbullying statutes here. The laws are varied, but they invariable contain words like "harassment", "abuse", "threatening," "fear," and "hostile environment." Would it be possible to "cyberbully" someone on Stack Exchange under some of these statutes? Sure. You could do it in comments; in answers; even in questions. "Question: Is Bill in my algebra class a dork, or a tool?" Comment: "This is a terrible question, and I'm going to burn your house down. Downvoting." You could probably fit something like that under some of the broader statutes--although they still for the most part haven't been tested for First Amendment issues. But I don't know of any statute broad enough to include downvoting a question or answer, on a site people post on knowing that the whole purpose of posting is to allow their posts to be upvoted and downvoted. If there was such a statute--and again, I don't know of any--it would almost certainly be unconstitutional. There is no law against hurting people's feelings, at least in the United States, and a law that allows people to seek legal redress for someone saying "I disagree with you" is pretty much the poster child for a First Amendment violation.
There is a subtle difference between NSF policy and enforceable obligation. The primary stick that goes with the carrot is being excluded from future funding. Current policy does not generally force material in the public domain, but it is a possibility in "exceptional circumstances". There no doubt is a paper record somewhere in D.C. indicating whether such a codicil was added to any of these grants. NSF generally does not have contracts with individuals, they have contracts with institutions who have relations (typically employer-employee) with individuals, so even if there were a policy requiring works to be put in the public domain, NSF would have to go after the institution, who would have to go after the author. Since that would conflict with longstanding NSF policy on copyright, it is unlikely that they would want to pursue such an approach. The statement that McGraw-Hill Book Company announces that the material, which is copyrighted, will be available for use by authors and publishers on a royalty-free basis on or after April 30, 1970 is not itself a license, it is a suggestion that a license will com into existence. A present-tense declaration "this work is dedicated to the public domain effective April 30, 1970" can be interpreted as a license effective of a date certain. Similarly, "will be available to all publishers for use in English after December 31, 1970, and in translations after December 31, 1975" does not say that it is in the public domain effective of some date. One might say that the copyright statement is simply not well written and the author really intended the books to be in the public domain as of those dates. But without compelling evidence that the book was actually released into the public domain, a court is very unlikely to abrogate a person's property rights.
Read the terms It’s quite likely that, if you took this to court, the employer would be liable to pay your daughter interest on the underpayment and possibly be fined by the state for failing to follow the law. The terms probably are offering to pay the back pay with no interest and your daughter agreeing to confidentiality about the breach. Probably - I haven’t read them. In other words, they’re asking her to sign a contract saying she gets $XXX now, and can’t make any further claims against them. Such releases are commonplace when setting a dispute and there’s probably nothing underhanded going on. Probably - I haven’t read them. Because minors can void contracts if they are not in their interest, they want you, as her legal guardian, to also sign so that can’t happen. A relatively prudent precaution on their part. The alternative is to not sign the document and they presumably won’t pay. It will then be up to you whether to sue them which will cost you money, possibly more than you will get if you win. As to whether there is a dispute: they want your signature, you don’t want to sign - that’s a dispute. Any admissions they have made in their settlement offer are almost surely without prejudice, meaning they are inadmissible in court. If you want to sue, you would have to prove the underpayment without relying on their admissions. As stated above, maybe there is no underpayment. Only you and your daughter can decide if this is a good deal.