Blog of Rights
Courtney
Bowie

Courtney Bowie is a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program. She focuses on litigating cases related to the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

 

Prior to joining the ACLU, Bowie was an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she directed the work of its Mississippi Youth Justice Project and litigated systemic claims on behalf of students with disabilities in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In addition to the rights of children, Bowie has practiced extensively in the area of the rights of people with disabilities. She graduated from the University of Texas Law School and received a B.A. from Wellesley College.
 

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page
09/24/2010

The Colonel Reb Foundation Needs to Allow Ole Miss to Move On

By Courtney Bowie, Racial Justice Program at 12:16pm

On Sunday, the New York Times reported on the "Colonel Reb" mascot controversy at the University of Mississippi, a.k.a. "Ole Miss."

Colonel Reb — a caricature of a white antebellum Southern plantation owner that served as the school's mascot for 24 years — was technically banned by the school's administration in 2003. The school is currently without a mascot, and there is a movement among some to bring Colonel Reb back. Some of the people who want to bring it back are members of an alumni-founded organization called the Colonel Reb Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving the mascot. Supporters of Colonel Reb rely on their own version of history to support their argument that Colonel Reb is the only mascot that will ever be suitable for the university.

Read More»
09/10/2010

Hello! Students Have a Right to Keep Cell Information Private

By Courtney Bowie, Racial Justice Program at 1:13pm

It's back to school this week, and students across the country will not only be catching up with friends and doing homework, but suffering the humiliation of having their cell phones illegally confiscated and searched.

That's right: it's an unfortunate fact that many school districts wrongly believe that if a student is in trouble for a minor offense, they have the right to conduct a fishing expedition in order to find evidence of other wrongdoing. Regardless of whether or not a student is permitted to have a phone on campus, if the Fourth Amendment is to have any meaning, the contents of that phone cannot be searched without reasonable, individualized suspicion that the search of the student's phone will lead to evidence of wrongdoing with the phone. This usually means that a warrant is required before the government can search our private information. At school, school administrators are required to have a reason for the search, prior to invading a student's privacy.

Read More»
  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page
Statistics image