Stuart Biegel

UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
UCLA School of Law
3339 Moore Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095
(310) 206-0132 -- biegel@ucla.edu

Stuart Biegel has been a member of the faculty at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies since 1985, and at the UCLA School of Law since 1989.

Biegel is a recognized expert in the fields of Education Law and Technology Law, having completed major works of scholarship in both areas. His education-related publications include an exploration of Fourteenth Amendment rights (Cornell Law Review), an overview of church-state issues (American Journal of Education, University of Chicago), a retrospective on bilingual education (Chicano-Latino Law Review), and an analysis of school choice policy (Hastings Law Journal). His Internet-related publications include a 2001 book on cyberspace regulation (MIT Press). 

In 2006, he published the first edition of Education and the Law, a new casebook for Thomson/West (American Casebook Series) which focuses on the range of front-burner legal controversies at both the K-12 and the higher education levels…including technology-related issues in education.  He is currently working on a second edition of this book (forthcoming 2009).

The following sections contain biographical highlights and key achievements in his two areas of expertise.

Law & Education

Biegel began his career as a classroom teacher in Los Angeles, teaching both elementary and secondary classes in public and private schools. He then joined the teacher education faculty at the UCLA Graduate School of Education, where he served as Assistant Director of Teacher Education (1989-1993), and Director of Teacher Education (1993-1995).

At UCLA, Biegel combined his background in education with his more recent legal training to develop an expertise in Education Law. He published numerous articles in this area, and organized several major statewide conferences that brought together academics and practitioners to analyze the implications of recent developments.

Biegel has taught law and education courses to doctoral students at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies since 1987, and to second and third-year law students at the UCLA School of Law since 1989. He has also served as Special Counsel for the California State Department of Education (1988-1996), and as a consultant to the City of Baltimore in their successful school finance lawsuit against the State of Maryland (1995-1996). From 1997-2005 he served as the State Monitor for the U.S. District Court in the multi-faceted desegregation and academic achievement consent decree focusing on the San Francisco public schools (SFNAACP v. SFUSD).

Law & Technology

Biegel is a recognized pioneer in the area of technology law & policy. He was one of the first faculty members nationwide to identify the potential of the Internet for both the legal and the education communities. In the mid-1990's, he taught the first official “cyberspace law” courses ever offered on the UCLA campus.

Biegel has written extensively on Internet-related issues, and has spoken at conferences and major universities across the country and overseas.  In late 2001, Biegel published a book on cyberspace regulation with MIT Press.  The book, entitled Beyond Our Control? Confronting the Limits of Our Legal System in the Age of Cyberspace, has won three awards, including  Best Information Science Book of the Year (ASIST 2002).  It was released in paperback in 2003.

Publications, Policy Studies, and Reports to the Court (Selected Highlights)

·  Reassessing the Applicability of Fundamental Rights Analysis: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Shaping of Educational Policy after Kadrmas v. Dickinson Public Schools, 74 Cornell Law Review 1078 (1989).

·  Public Funds for Private Schools: Political and First Amendment Considerations (with Amy Stuart Wells), American Journal of Education (University of Chicago) (May 1993).

·  School Choice Policy and Title VI: Maximizing Equal Access for K-12 Students in a Substantially Deregulated Educational Environment, 46 Hastings Law Journal 1533 (1995).

·  The Wisdom of Plyler v. Doe, 17 Chicano-Latino Law Review 46 (Special Issue on California Proposition 187) (1995).

·  New Directions in Cyberspace Law, Los Angeles & San Francisco Daily Journals (January 1996-August 1997).

·  Policy Issues and Prospects: Regarding the Potential Breakup of the Los Angeles Unified School District (with Theodore R. Mitchell, S. Carnochan, L. Reynolds, & J. Slayton), Urban Education Studies Center, UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, July 1997.

·  The Consent Decree Monitoring Team Reports on Desegregation & Academic Achievement in the San Francisco Unified School District, Submitted to the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (1997-2005).

·  Beyond Our Control? Confronting the Limits of Our Legal System in the Age of Cyberspace, MIT Press (October 2001).

·  Education and the Law, Thomson/West (American Casebook Series) (Spring 2006).

·  Court-Mandated Education Reform: The San Francisco Experience and the Shaping of Educational Policy after Seattle-Louisville and Brian Ho v. SFUSD, 4 Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties 159 (2008).