MORAGANTOWN -- The West Virginia University’s College of Law has awarded professor Joshua Weishart its annual Significant Scholarship Award for his article, ““Equal Liberty in Proportion.”
The article, published in 2017, addresses the legal standards state courts use when reviewing education rights casaes.
The College of Law’s faculty committee awards the scholarship each year to a professor who researches and writes a comprehensive and concise article on an issue it considers important to the public.
“It is ... gratifying to have the faculty ... understand the importance of legal scholarship, to recognize the quality of my research and writing,” Weishart said. “My law review article is not more deserving than the work of my colleagues but I am most grateful for the recognition.”
Weishart’s article contends that, because state courts lack suitable review standards on education cases, they are unable to properly enforce the current laws and standards.
The article acknowledges that state governments lack of adequate funding for public schools. Weishart recommends new standards by which local government can provide and even improve public education.
“By proposing a realistic and achievable standard, my hope is that courts will re-engage in education rights cases after a decade in which most have retreated, to the great detriment of public schools,” Weishart said. “Whether the wave of teacher strikes persist or not, we need courts to fulfill their duties to ensure compliance with state constitutional rights to education.”
Weishart’s researched education law and policy, and addresses the demands of educational equality and adequacy under the constitutional right to education, according to his website. His scholarship has been published in leading academic law journals, including the Stanford Law Review, Alabama Law Review, and the William & Mary Law Review. Along with being an educator, he conducts research for the West Virginia Public Education Collaborative and publishes the WV ED Law Blog.
“Professor Weishart, through this article, demonstrates the type of deep and critical legal scholarship our professors produce on a regular basis,” said Joshua Fershee , associate dean for faculty research and development at the College of Law. “He identifies a problem, analyzes and breaks down a complex situation into its fundamental parts, and then presents a remedy for solving the problem.
Weishart is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and has a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge, as well as a bachelor’s degree from West Virginia University. He holds a joint appointment at the WVU College of Law and the John D. Rockefeller IV School of Policy and Politics.
