Education Law Association

Beginnings

In the mid-1940s, at the urging of Frank Heinisch, an attorney from Omaha, Nebraska, Madaline Kinter Remmlein, then an employee of the National Education Association (NEA), asked NEA leadership to establish a department on school law issues at the NEA. However, her request was denied due to a perception of a lack of interest in such a topic. Edward C. Bolmeier, president of Duke University, and Lee O. Garber, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, suggested to Remmlein that they create a school law organization independent of the NEA.

In February 1954, school law research appeared for the first time as one of the topics for a roundtable discussion at the annual convention of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). The eight discussants' report urged organizing a school law national conference in order to facilitate communication between school law specialists and their colleagues. In the meanwhile, Garber's suggestion of forming a school law organization for the exchange of ideas in the school law newsletter that he wrote garnered significant support.

In June 1954, the first school law conference took place at Duke University due, in large part, to Bolmeier's influence. During the proceedings of the conference, what would soon be known as the National Organization on Legal Problems of Education (NOLPE) emerged as an independent organization. Its membership of 57 came from the District of Columbia and 15 states: Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. Remmlein became NOLPE's first chairman. The support for the running of the organization during the organizational year came from dues, which amounted to the grand sum of $1.00, and NEA's research division provided clerical help (Remmlein, 1966).

In order to spread its membership across the country, NOLPE sent out invitations addressed to its members, to Duke conference attendees who did not join the organization, to school administrators from the 100 largest school districts in the country, and to 70 officers of state board associations, 103 deans of law schools, and 100 deans of schools of education and presidents of teacher-training institutions. Within six weeks of its creation, the “buddy system” (Remmlein, 1966, pp. 2–3) NOLPE used to promote membership succeeded in increasing its membership number to 205, with representatives from 40 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam. More than one-fifth were lawyers connected with school affairs or law schools; more than one-fifth were county or city school superintendents; one-third were professors of educational administration; and the remaining were educators on the staffs of state departments of education, the federal Department of Education, the National Education Association, and state education associations. In addition, NOLPE asked many organizations, such as the National School Boards Association, the American Association of School Administrators, AERA, and NEA to announce its creation.

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